A Trio of Fast Women

is clear that there was a significant impact on company employees and the local population. For the workforce there was a steep learning curve regarding the new technology, learning by trial and error, running a steam-powered railway that still employed conventional horse traction with the steam traction based on an astonishing number of some eighty locomotives of individual designs and features. So, not only is a study of pioneering locomotives presented but also a human story through ordinary members of the public coming to accept a new element in their everyday lives, either as innocent bystanders or being exposed to dangers presented to life and limb. Locomotive drivers, in what appears as a common theme of the early steam railway, are seen as a law unto themselves and here are stories that flesh out and depict an almost lawless environment on the Sirhowy. To sum up, the book will appeal to a wide audience that is wider than those interested in the railways of South Wales in that it provides an insight into the operation of a technological ‘dead-end’ in terms of a steam tramroad system that worked until the 1860s.