Blood on the Tracks: A History of Railway Crime in Britain

by David Brandon

Between 1835 and the 1850s, railway mania blossomed around Britain. Crime emerged as the railways developed, at first opportunistic crimes such as fare evasion and robberies, but gradually more inventive forms evolved, notably the minor clerk Redpath in the 1850s, whose shameless cooking of the books to live the high life exposed the lack of any kind of accountancy across the railway industry. The first train murder was not until the 1840s, and sparked great fear of foreigners as a German was charged and hanged for the crime. The outcry resulted in the communication cord being introduced to the railway carriages, so that no longer would they exist as completely separate spaces and passengers could alert the driver to any assault within. This fascinating history covers all varieties of crime on the railways and how it has changed over the years, from assaults and robberies, to theft of goods, murder, vandalism, football and other crowd activity, suicide on the line, fraud and white collar crime, and also looks at the use of railway crime in film and literature.

Genres: True Crime

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Elliot Savage]

Thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this book, but the second half almost felt as if the writers had lost interest in the project and were rushing to fit in the rest of the information as quickly as possible. In the end it made the last few chapters lack the depth of the first half of the book and gave the whole thing a rather messy and disjointed end, that wasn't nearly as pleasurable to read as the first chapters. Shame as the subject is an interesting one and would've been very informative if the writing had stayed consistent till the end. However, I did take away some titles of other books and films to look into in the future, so that was much appreciated.

[Catherine Green]

Interesting stories.

[Edmund Chattoe-Brown]

This is a hodge podge but an interesting hodge podge. It very much does what it says on the tin. It suffers somewhat from the creaky writing and editing found in "wonk publishing" (military, transport) but this isn't intrusive and the organisation and handling of the episodic approach is pretty good. (But it is quite sweet how the authors express totally irrelevant views on nationalisation, Inter-City and railway stations that are just platforms with a bus shelter on top: Wonks _really_ can't help themselves!) I learned two or three genuinely new things from this book as some styles of crime (like fraud) also give away a lot about the social context. The chapters on trains in film and books are interesting but aren't well justified relative to the content on "real crime" in the rest of the book (and the authors, bless em, can't tell the difference between a film _about_ trains and one that just has lots of footage in a rail station!) The book just stops and doesn't really sum up. Definitely worth the time of those in interested in crime and/or railways but also worth a look by the omnivorous general reader.

[Henrycat]

an interesting idea for a book, when I saw it I bought it in about two minutes but so poorly written that reading the last fifty pages was a chore. Avoid but look for anything else on railway crime.

[Deanne]

History and crime, with lots of interesting bits of information. There are a few cases which appear frequently in books and some new cases which I was unaware of.