The Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway

In the UK, 1951 was the year of the Festival of Britain, held all over the country but especially on a special site on the South Bank of the Thames close to Waterloo Station. This site was the 'serious' part of the Exhibition, but upstream in Battersea was to be found the 'Festival Gardens', in essence a gigantic fairground.

This was populated by weird and wonderful contraptions invented by Rowland Emett, the very popular cartoonist of the day. Of these, none was weirder and more wonderful than "The Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway which featured in many of Emett's cartoons, which was recreated in 15" gauge in the Festival Gardens, and transported 1000s of passengers during the Garden's two year life.

Contained in this 56 page A4 format book is the whole story of this wonderous railway, the men involved in its creation, with maps, drawings of infrastructure and the 3 diesel-electric powered, steam outline, locomotives - "Nellie", "Neptune" and "Wild Goose". The latter operated the airborne service! There are also a reasonable number of B&W and colour photographs.

A memorably innocent time and event recalled!