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!We don't want to leave you but we think we ought to go.

Robert started this business from a back bedroom in our Chiswick flat in 1974 and it has kept us harmlessly occupied now for fifty years. That seems enough, our joints are rusting and striding about carrying huge boxes of books no longer appeals. Reluctantly we pulled down the shutters for the last time at the end of August 2025.

We are no longer open to casual callers but sales from this site continue.
We shall continue to open by appointment while we still have sufficient stock for it to be worthwhile.
The web site sales will also continue to operate for the time being.
The sale discounts still apply!
For an appointment e-mail books@roberthumm.co.uk, or try phoning 01780 766266, we are still often working around the shop


Retirement Sale - All Stock Must Go!
Thousands of good clean railway books, British and foreign, booklets, time tables, bound periodicals.
Sale discounts for customers visiting the shop:
Old and recent : 50% off marked prices
New : 25% off cover prices
Plus many special bargains.
Sale prices for online buyers : the web site now applies an across the board 30% discount.

Robert Humm & Co specialises in rare and out-of-print books about railways, other transport and industrial history. We also stock a wide selection of new books on railways.
For over a quarter of a century our shop was in the former station master's house at Stamford railway station but with the end of our lease there we moved to 59 Scotgate, Stamford PE9 2YQ in 2016.

Our Scotgate shop is convenient for the town centre, parking, the A1 Great North Road and the railway - Stamford station, with an hourly service on the cross-country Birmingham to East Anglia railway, is ten minutes walk. Stamford itself is a handsome town with fine architecture, excellent shopping and restaurants - it is well worth a day out in its own right.

We offer a mail order service and welcome enquiries by phone, post or e-mail. Our knowledgeable and helpful staff are always happy to help.This is not primarily an on-line business, however most of our new books and a little selection of our second-hand stock are listed on this site; most of the listings can be ordered on-line.
So far as the new books go, we have stopped re-stocking and much that was formerly listed is no longer available from us. Everything out of stock has now been weeded out and the pared-down New Books sections will reward a browse because there is quite a lot there which is now out of print, still at publishers' original prices and now discounted as well.

Best Selling Items

Railway Archive. No 6.

£7.50


Parkhouse & Pope, eds.
Large, 96 pages, illustrated, soft back journal. *Drummond 4-6-0s; District Line G Stock; Leicester-Rugby / 1; Photographs of E Pouteau: GWR/1; Late Victorian Ferries at Dover; Cumberland post cards. Last copy.
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Railway Archive. No 2.

£7.50


Parkhouse & Pope, eds.
Large, 96 pages, illustrated, soft back journal. *Mersey Railway 1886-1903; MR Londonderry - Strabane; Stoke Works pt2; Photographs of E Pouteau; Northamptonshire.
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Early Railways 7.

£55.00

Papers from the seventh International Early Railways Conference.
Liffen, J and Jones, S K (eds).
Medium, 348 pages, illustrated with photos, diagrams, maps and contemporary documents and images, glazed boards. *Eighteen papers from the seventh International Early Railways Conference, the results of new research into the formative years of railway development in the UK, continental Europe, India and Australia. The remit of the Conference has been extended to 1870 so as to take in the early main line era. The papers cover a broad range of erudite subjects from politics to technology and include such examples as railway uniforms, Kilsby Tunnel and the use of early railway models and miniature railways in Australia. Exceptionally important among these papers is one by John Liffen describing the discovery of the report of the judges of the Rainhill Trials together with the full text of that report, published here for the first time.
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The Railways.

£25.00

Nation, network and people.
Bradley, S.
Medium, 645 pages + a 16 page section of nicely-chosen illustrations, mostly coloured, other illustrations in the text, bibliography and sources, hard back. ** "Using fresh research, keen observation and a wealth of cultural references, Bradley weaves a remarkable story of technological achievement, of architecture and engineering, of shifting social classes and gender relations, of safety and crime, of tourism and the changing world of work." To describe it as a new history of our railways would be very largely to miss the point of this book, described without exaggeration as magisterial. It is an exploration of the past and present worlds of Britain's railways which treats familiar topics from unfamiliar aspects and constantly surprises with facts and details which have escaped previous historians. Eminently readable and highly recommended.
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The Railway.

£40.00

British track since 1804.
Dow.
Very large, 458 pages, illustrated with good photographs and large, clear specially drawn diagrams, hard back. **Here is a hugely detailed treatise on the history of permanent way by an expert. It is erudite, lucidly written and a handsome production. Along with the examination of the many and complex developments which led from wooden rails to modern permanent way and mechanical track-laying, there are chapters devoted to third rail electrification, tramway track, narrow gauge lines and such peculiarities as portable railways, funiculars and rack railways. It will surely be a standard work of reference but also rather a good read, though at well over 2kg hardly suitable for reading on the train.
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Railway Archive. No 38.

£8.25


Parkhouse & Pope, eds.
Large, 80 pages, illustrated, soft back journal. ** British Atlantic locomotives; Barleith railway community; Hopwood/ 15 : Brecon & Merthyr and Neath & Brecon; Lord Monkswell's Notebooks/4; Ballyvoile viaduct IRA attack.
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