I just received this e-mail from Adam Harris of Camden Miniature Steam Services (book seller) in the UK and thought I'd pass it along:

"Hi Guys,

This is just to let you all know that our reprint of David Wardale's
infamous book will be available early next month. Price is £39.95 plus
postage as appropriate.

Must admit I never thought I would persuade Dave to let me do this, but
under some extra pressure from Chris Newman of the 5AT Group he caved in
with good grace!

Other than a new cover design, this is an exact reprint of the original, so
doesn't include anything on the 5AT or Dave's current thoughts.
Unfortunately it is still that very condensed print, but it would not have
been commercially viable to reset it to meet Dave's standards of accuracy.

Currently it cannot be ordered on our website, but the moment I know the
exact delivery date it will go on.

Adam
Camden Miniature Steam Services
http://www.camdenmin.co.uk"

BTW- 39.95 British pounds is about $60 US at current exchange rates.

Cover schmover.....it's what's inside that matters - a wealth of technical information and a good history as well.

dave

In the past, did the gentleman from Camden indicate that proceeds would go to the 5AT Group? I thought Chris Newman was going to handle sales of the reprints with profit going to the group. Is Mr. Newman still in the loop?

I just want to make sure my money goes to benefit the group, even if I have to pay more for the book.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Mr. Wardale said he did not want any royalties from the book. He is 'charging' for it, rather than putting an online version up, because he is of the opinion that people will value something more highly if they pay for it.

When I last contacted Chris, it was understood that the income from the book above the costs of production would go to the 5AT organization. I doubt that has changed.

Fond memories of reading this book while on an overnight steam hauled train journey in China

What today though is the 5AT group funding besides a web page?

http://www.5at.co.uk/

TH

Three images from former SAR fireman Richard Niven taken in 1991 with these words

"The image above, the train in photo is the Durban to Cape Town weekly passenger train. Steam coupled on at Kimberley and worked it to De Aar or vise versa. It lasted until my final working with 3454 on 3 April 1992 and that was steam over.

The good thing with this beast was the harder you hammered her the better she steamed and so it was full speed every inch of the way!

She would pull the backside off these modern toys I drive today"

"19D 2644 "Spooky" was never as good but was still a great performer. She had too much pull on the center of the fire and so suffered from holes being made in the center of the fire.

If you never caught it in time you were soon in trouble, especially when running at speed. By the time you got the center filled the sides were burnt away and so it was a mad 10 minutes with the shovel."

(Richard drives electric passenger trains in Scotland and Northern England for Virgin Trains today. He was the very last fireman to fire a 25 Condenser. His regular engine was the 25NC 3488 "Enchantress" which he purchased from the scrapper. It is stored in South Africa to this day.)

TH

Refresh my memory, please--did these engines run on 42-inch or standard gauge track?

3' 6", 42", 1067mm, whatever you want to call it......

Yes. 145km per hour on 1067mm track. 90mph on 3' 6".

Makes this all the more impressive, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVYS7xj3eic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEb-xR2b3aU

Richard and his regular driver John Gilberthorp with the last run of a 25 condenser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYEhFeFOeBs

UPDATE: Advance ordering of the reprint is now open.

The PayPal link was not yet 'live' as of 11:30 CDT, but I expect it will be working by the time you read this.

Forwarded message:

This message is being sent to everyone who has contacted me to express an interest in buying a copy of the 2013 reprint of Dave Wardale’s book.

The news from Camden is that the book is due to be released from the printers around 16th April next. I’ve therefore posted a new “sales” page onto the 5AT website (see http://5at.co.uk/index.php/sales/Red-De ... rs.html%20) to accept advanced orders for the book from anyone who wants to secure a copy. Whilst it is not expected that the entire print-run will sell out overnight, there is strong interest in the book so there’s every likelihood that they will be sold out sooner rather than later.

You will find that the “sales” page has a long preamble explaining the background to the reproduction of the book and the cooperation that has taken place between Adam Harris of Camden Miniature Steam and the 5AT Group to bring it back onto the market. I will therefore no repeat story here. Suffice to say that it’s been a long, but hopefully worthwhile process.

With regards money, I will be collecting payments for the book in a special “Red Devil” PayPal account from which I will pay Camden’s invoices for supplying and shipping the books on the 5AT Group’s behalf. The remaining balance will then be transferred to the 5AT Group’s bank account by way of a donation. I don’t intend that any of the money will pass through my own bank account, although it is possible that it will be necessary to do so for transfer purposes. At any rate, please be assured that your payment will be shared between the 5AT Group and Camden Miniature Steam who, I believe, will pay a small royalty on behalf of Dave Wardale to his local steam railway, the beautiful Strathspey Railway. At any rate, be assured that all your money (excepting the postage costs) will be put towards good causes and that I will not be receiving any of it myself. [Note: I count Camden Miniature Steam as a “good cause”. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a very small enterprise based in rural Somerset that provides an excellent (and probably unique) service to the discerning railway/transport/engineering book collector, as you will discover when you receive one of their catalogues with your purchase.]

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you have any problems accessing the book sales page or problems lodging your payment for a copy of the book. Please also contact me if you want to purchase more than one copy of the book because I’ll have to obtain (hopefully reduced) postal rates for multiple orders.

I look forward to receiving your order.

Best wishes



Chris Newman

From: Chris Newman
63 Dragon Villas
8 Shun An Road South
Shunyi District
Beijing 101300
CHINA
Phone +86-1350-122-9247
Email: info@5at.co.uk

Those who have preordered, at least directly from Camden, should be receiving their copies soon. Mine hit the doorstep today.

MIne arrived today. Quite appropriately, Manchester City and Chelsea are in town playing an exhibition soccer match.

Hi All

Mine arrived in Australia yesterday, all good.
Many thanks to Chris Newman and Adam Harris of Camden for organising it all so well.

Bruce

Today when I arrived home after running some errands, I found a large reinforced plastic bag on my front porch. On the bag, in big letters was GREAT BRITAIN. It must be the Red Devil book! A bit of overkill on the packaging, but the book arrived in mint condition. It came with a catalog from the bookseller, with a report on their shop cats on the back. Their stock in trade includes books on welding and machine work, rather like the old Lindsay Publications in the US, and videos of rail action around the world. My only quibble is that the Red Devil book is printed in a typeface that leave something to be desired in the readability dept., especially to us Presbyopians. Cheers!

One of my other interests is recorded popular music of the last 100 years or so. It seems like the British (e.g. Ace Records) and continental European CD companies have reissued a lot of American "Golden Oldies" that have never been digitized in the US. It's often been brought up in RYPN that, broadly speaking, the Brits seem to have a lot more respect for history than we Yanks do.