On and off the Rails – Hardback – Sir John Elliot

Last Updated on April 23, 2026

On and off the Rails – Hardback – Sir John Elliot.

This is not ‘just another book about railways’ In these memoirs Sir John Elliot looks back on his international and varied career, from being the first ‘Public Relations Officer’ in Britain, on Sir Herbert Walker’s Southern Railway in 1925, to the pinnacle of his career as the last General Manager of the Southern Railway, Chairman of the Railway Executive and of London Transport. He takes the reader behind the scenes of a great railway in peace and war: the creation of the world’s largest suburban electrification, the drama of Dunkirk, the mass movement of the British and American armies for the invasion of Europe, and the bitter fight against nationalisation and the assassination of four famous railways after the war. There are accounts of the London bus strike of 1958, the birth of the Victoria Line and dealings with French and other foreign railwaymen, all told in a lively and non-technical style, with no punches pulled. Famous personalities-Churchill, Attlee, Montgomery, Beaverbrook

-abound in these intimate and sometimes impertinent recollections of one of Britain’s outstanding railway personalities, who was there when it all happened.

This book was previously for sale at Margot’s Books. The shop is now closed — this post is kept as an archive record only.