A Tale of Many Railways. An Autobiography & History of Alan Keef Ltd

Alan M.Keef    Lightmoor Press 2008  

Used, excellent condition   £26

In this book Alan Keef himself documents the history of his firm and its products. Despite coinciding with the virtual demise of the industrial narrow gauge railway, his family company moved on to include the leisure industry, heritage railways and a rebirth of the large-scale garden railway. This book details the trials and tribulations of building a world-wide business from scratch. For the steam enthusiast, there are details of the various locomotives that have been overhauled and rebuilt, in addition to those that have been built new. Over 200 photographs, mostly in colour, document the eighty or so new locomotives built up to the time of publication. There are also details of some of the other very odd applications for which Alan Keef Ltd have built railways, such as launching tracks for lifeboats, industrial monorails and projects that never happened. Whilst everything the company makes tends to be slightly different, for the modeller there are scale drawings of the standard designs, which can then be customised. Additional chapters include details of the author’s other interests in boats, matters ecclesiastical and family life in general.