Founded over three hundred years ago and lying behind a high, three-mile long, stone wall is Devonport Dockyard. Situated on the western boundary of the City of Plymouth, it forms a barrier between the community and the waterfront of the River Tamar. Behind that wall is another community, with its own customs and rules, and its own unique railway system.

This book describes the railway system within the Dockyard. It was the only means of communication between what are, in fact, three separate yards, once only connected by a tunnel under Devonport. From its origins in an early tramway laid down in 1860 to Brunel's broad gauge, the railway was quickly expanded to form a vital link not only in and between the yards but also to the national railway network. At its zenith more than twenty miles of trackwork were in constant use with, at one time or another, up to thirty steam locomotives.

The unique free passenger service served for over seventy years as the only transport through the tunnels for all at work in the dockyard; civilian workmen and service personnel. The extraordinary service ran twenty times a weekday and had six classes of accommodation, from Workmen to Admiral!

Carrying thousands of tons of freight every year, and an untold number of passengers, the complex operation was not without incident and misadventure, but even these can have a humorous angle.

This is the definitive history of a remarkable railway, only now able to be told by unique access to records not previously in the public domain. The story is told from those early years, right up to date, and into the future, for this railway still functions.

ISBN 0 906294 37 1. 160 pages, 200 illustrations. Hard back with full colour dustwrapper. 

£25.00