IN A SMALL TOWN in the Lake District there is a plan to re-open the railway. Built originally for the mines, closed for fifteen years, it has long since returned to nature. But with the rails re-laid, a steam engine, and a lot of volunteers, it might again be possible to take a train through some spectacular Lakeland scenery. Gregory Craven, who has left London's banking world to help run the town's youth hostel, finds himself joining in with the project.
But soon differences surface among the project's members. Is it a valuable attempt to save something of Britain's fast-vanishing industrial past or a typically eighties exercise in nostalgia? Will it bring any new jobs to the town, or just even more tourists in cars? Does the whole thing symbolise an escape from consumerism and enterprise culture, or are they all doing exactly what Thatcherite Britain would expect them to?
Soft cover

Condition: Good