Electrifying the East Coast route - P. W. B Semmens

The electrification of the East Coast Main Line is BR's largest investment programme for 25 years - costing #306 million, and dubbed "the longest building site in Britain" - the first of the 33,000 steel masts to support the wires along this 360-mile route was erected in February 1985. By the end of 1989, electric trains were running to Leeds, and power was switched on at York. The completion of this project will be in May 1991, when the whole of the route from King's Cross to Edinburgh will be "live". The author has had full official co-operation in the preparation of this history of the project - its engineering, locomotive rolling-stock and signalling. The book is aimed at readers interested in state-of-the-art railway engineering and the new "Railway Age", and is a sequel to the author's previous book, "Speed on the East Coast Main Line", which charted the history of this route up to the time of the authorization of the electrification plan.