Sweden had a surprising variety of track gauges for its 'local interest' railway lines: a glance at the contents page for this new book reveals: 891 mm, 1067 mm (both Statens Järnvägar or the State Railways); for others, 600 mm, 750 mm; 891 mm, 1093 mm, 1099 mm/1011 mm and 1217 mm. How these gauges arose is intriguing in itself. All of these railways were from steam days, few survived into diesel days, one exception is the electric Roslagsban north of Stockholm (see earlier post), and a few made it to museums.
The book is a compendium of look-up facts for both the railways and the steam locomotives that worked them, plus other items of rolling stock, illustrated with plenty of photos in both colour and monochrome, plus some diagrams. Photos includes details of various parts.
Like other Stenvall books, the layout is simple but effective with little wasted white space and smallish but nicely reproduced photos. There is no English summary so those who don't read Swedish (most people outside Scandinavia) will find the going slow, and there is no location map, although today people can key place names into Google Earth to see where they are. 368 pages in 170 x 250 mm format, hardcovered.
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