Two episodes described by Laurence Waters in his latest book demonstrate his lifelong interest in railways. The first recalls a childhood trip on the Woodstock branch line with his parents in June 1953, to attend a horse show at Blenheim Palace; the second notes his presence on the recordbreaking journey in June 2019 when a special train marking the 175th anniversary of the opening of Oxford's first railway station travelled from Oxford to London Paddington in just 37 minutes 35 seconds. From boyhood trainspotting through his career as a professional photographer to his retirement post as honorary photographic archivist to the Great Western Trust at Didcot, Waters has researched railway history, especially in the Oxford area, and has assembled a formidable collection of photographs. He has always been keen to share his knowledge with the wider public, and the Bodleian Library's SOLO catalogue records thirty-seven publications in which he has been involved as author or photographer since the 1980s.

This book both expands upon and updates Waters’ Rail Centres: Oxford, published in 1986, and it examines the working of the railway and the development of passenger and freight services from 1844 to the present day. Initial chapters cover the background to the building of the first line from Didcot to Oxford, the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) at Oxford, the city's Great Western Railway (GWR) stations, and the branch lines for which Oxford became the hub. Some of this ground has of course been extensively quarried by other railway historians, but – surprisingly – they have tended to overlook Oxford, and Waters’ primary focus on the city is therefore welcome. In more specialised chapters, he discusses the various GWR engine sheds, the development of signalling at Oxford, the working of the goods department, and the evolution of passenger services. These may seem arcane matters, but they are key to understanding the local impact of the railway, and Waters is an expert guide, using a sumptuous array of photographs and other illustrations to support his text.

Newspapers are a vital source of information for early railway history, and Waters quotes a splendid report from 1842: it describes the plight of a first-class passenger at Steventon station who found the connecting coach for Oxford already full, and consequently arrived in the city seventy-five minutes late.