Description
4to, VII, 184pp. Hardcover in red cloth with gilt title to the firm spine and only very minor shelfwear edge bruising plus a laminated d/w in very good condition with slight chipping and internal browning of top edge now protected by clear archival covering, all text and b/w photographs are in excellent condition devoid of foxing or prior owner annotations with unadorned attractive illustrated sepia front and rear endpapers. In 1855 the Colonial Government of NSW acquired the assets of the Sydney Railway Company which was basically an almost completed railway line that only penetrated twenty-two kms into the Australian interior. Three weeks later it opened and eight months later the colony acquired a new constitution. Thereby, local politicians, not British governors would henceforth control the destiny of their own railway and this book is the story of what they did with their railway. ” Within thirty years, the isolation of the bush was broken forever”.