Welcome

It's been quite a century for railways! From the heady days of the 1900s through to nationalisation, and then the 'wilderness years' in the run up to privatisation, to the present more optimistic dawn of the 21^st Century.

During the last 100 years motive power has continued to evolve - from steam through to the high speed passenger services of today. Perhaps the most unexpected outcome of the rapidly changing motive power scene has been the retention of genuine working steam until the year 2000 in China and Cuba. Not even the most optimistic railfan in 1968 expected to see very much steam in the UK, and yet our private steam lines are now well established tourist attractions offering a staggering variety of motive power and periods.

Many of the most famous railway structures - like the Forth railway bridge - were already built and in regular use by the turn of the 20^th Century. However, one enterprise that did eventually come to fruition in 1994 must take the prize for the most notable railway structure of this century - the Channel Tunnel.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of privatisation there is undoubtedly, at long last, a fresh new desire to revitalise the nation's railway network. The new private operators are steadily getting to grips with the massive shortfall in public spending on the UK's railway network that started soon after British Railways was created in 1948. The early years of the 21^st Century will indeed be very exciting for the rail network as a whole. There's so much to look forward to including new tilting trains, the high speed channel tunnel link finally opening and the continued renaissance of rail freight.

As always TeleRail will be on hand to report the latest developments in the style for which we've become famous - expertly filmed and entertaining specialist documentary railway programmes.This year also sees a brand new venture as TeleRail Publishing is born ! The initial aim is to provide a top quality specialist book to accompany our renowned series Vanishing World Steam.

Our first book Extreme Steam features a remarkable collection of carefully selected photographs that were mostly taken during the bitterly cold winter months in China when temperatures regularly fall as low as -30C.

This fine new book features some of the very best and most atmospheric railway action photographs ever seen - all taken during the last few years of the 20^th century when China became the final outpost for working steam. Full details of Extreme Steam are on page 36.

Finally - as always - we value your feed back so please continue to write to us with requests or comments concerning any of our programmes.

Steve le Cheminant
Managing Director