A NEW book brings a splash of colour to the dying days of steam trains on the railways of West Oxfordshire and further afield.

The late Alan Maund, from Worcester, first used colour film in 1959 and travelled widely over the next few years, photographing steam locomotives as they were being phased out and the diesel and electric trains that took their place.

After his death in 1983, aged 52, his archive was passed by his widow, Wendy, to photographer and film-maker Michael Clemens, who has now published a selection of Mr Maund's pictures, entitled The Last Years of Steam Around the Midlands.

The images were taken throughout the central counties of England.

Kingham station features in its final years as a key junction, with lines joining there from the four points of the compass, including the branch to Chipping Norton.

The funeral train carrying Sir Winston Churchill's body back to West Oxfordshire for burial at Bladon is shown passing slowly through Oxford station, bound for Hanborough, along with a sequence of pictures following the progress of a steam-hauled railtour as it visited many of Oxfordshire's railway backwaters in 1963, shortly before they closed, as Dr Beeching's axe fell.

  • The Last Years of Steam Around the Midlands, by Michael Clemens, is published by Fonthill Media, priced £18.99. For further information, see michaelclemensrailways.co.uk