Everyone has their own idea of what a railway is and there is no single defining imageof the railway concept. Yet it has to be said that some railways are definitely strangerthan others!Why have two rails when just one will do? Ireland has the utterly bizarre Listowel& Ballybunion Railway, where Siamese twin-like double locomotives run on aV-shaped monorail.Britain is also home to a working steam monorail, while one train from a 1960s¿ bidto invent a high-speed hovertrain survives, as do both carriages from the country¿sfirst dabbling in magnetic levitation.Steam, diesel and electric locomotives and horses are not the only form of traction:sail power has been used on British lines, and if your line is steep enough, why notlet the train roll by itself from one end to another? Why have traction at all, when, asBrunel discovered, you can pull trains along at high speeds by a vacuum pipe in themiddle of the tracks?Railways can be designed for any location, and used to tackle any task or terrain, nomatter how difficult or improbable. For example, the wartime railways on the tinyBristol Channel seagull sanctuary of Steep Holm, the world¿s smallest public railwayin Norfolk, a secret system serving Britain¿s nuclear bunker city beneath Wiltshire, thecountry¿s own prison railway where Borstal boys pushed wagonloads of mud, thenumerous lines built to collect potatoes from the Lincolnshire fens, and Bristol¿sforgotten funicular line, to name but some. And if you think Brunel was over the topwith his broad gauge, what about the man who has a garden railway where thelocomotive is too big to run on any modern British line?Discover these and many, many more in Britain¿s Bizarre Railways, a book whichopens many new doors into the understanding and appreciation of the concept ofrailways ¿ however insane!