For many parts of Britain steam fans and local people combined to take over favourite stretches of railway and, by the dint of much hard work, started running trains again, often worked by steam. There are now many thriving preserved railways and railway societies and museums, so that the public may again enjoy travelling behind a shining steam locomotive. In this book fifty-seven are described, not all former BR lines, which, by being revived or by having survived against the odds, deserve to be called preserved railways.