Trains

A wonderfully inventive pop-up guide for railway enthusiasts of all ages by the master of paper engineering, Robert Crowther. The book is a celebration of trains of all kinds from the earliest steam locomotive to the high-speed Japanese maglev train. The clean graphic style of artwork is reminiscent of early railway posters with their bright reds, blues and greens. Here are trains that disappear into mountains or dive underground, trains that cross viaducts or hang from monorails. There’s a wealth of detailed information for older reader or parent tucked beneath the flaps or alongside the tracks. But the real fun is in pulling a tab, turning a wheel or opening a flap to peep inside a carriage or an engine. Best of all is the pop-up station that allows you to be the stationmaster, change the points and send the trains speeding on their way. Enjoy it for the cleverness of the paper engineering, for the detail in the illustrations (mice on the tracks, kissing couples saying fond farewells, porters with their trolleys) or for the sheer pleasure of a book fired by an enthusiast’s passion for his subject.