Coming Up With the Goods

Billed as a book about people, places, pies and goods trains, \'coming up with the goods\' defies easy categorisation. Hardback, coffee-table format, and profusely illustrated with the author\'s own colour photography, it ostensibly describes a dozen journeys-the length and breadth of Britain-made in the locomotive cabs of freight trains. But there are deeper themes than transport, and whilst topography and humour contribute, it is perhaps the people who the author bumps into-drivers, guards, inspectors, shunters and others-who make the most vivid impact.

\'Coming up with the goods\' is being published at a time when transport considerations are paramount. Grid-lock threatens the roads, rail freight offers a tempting alternative environmentally and logistically, but as Michael Pearson discovers on his travels, not necessarily financially. The goal posts need moving and the playing field needs levelling if there is to be a sea-change in approach.