John Bradley Book – Living Steam – Train Book

There are just 100 first edition copies of Living Steam available. Soft cover, with over 100 pages, including 35 colour plates. Printed in Australia. Hand Signed by John Bradley. $48 each plus $15 postage or pick up from Morpeth Gallery – Thursday – Sunday 10am – 5pm.

In these days of modern electric trains and light rail, it is hard to remember the smell of coal smoke, the hiss of steam, and sting of cinders flying into your eyes as you hung out a window. There was romance then, whether travelling for work or pleasure being on a steam train was a daily experience.

Stream train Artist, John Bradley will launch his latest book, titled Living Steam at Morpeth Gallery, 5 Green Street Morpeth over the weekend of 12th and 13th March 2022. John will be in the gallery signing copies and working at his easel, painting his next iconic train painting.

“This is an epic book about the steam locomotives of Australia from the earliest days. It is a picture book as well as a reference book, brimming with facts, figures and information about where steam trains operated or still operate, with minute details which will fascinate the railway historian.

The book features 35 colour plates of John’s steam train paintings including some of the most famous of the steam trains ever to be built in Australia”.

If you are passionate about steam locomotives, or know someone who is, then Living Steam is the perfect companion.

Artist John Bradley has been painting fabulous pictures of trains for 47 years. John’s passion for the bygone days has uncovered stories from drivers & gangers, stokers & crossing guards, their families & everyone in between, to tell the funny, dramatic, and hilarious times of a world long past, all narrated in the book.

John Bradley takes readers into the grand story of steam transportation over ten decades of transformation in Australia’s history – a nation galvanised with economic growth delivered by steam, including the transportation of soldiers to fields of conflict as Australia fought in two World Wars.

For a century, from 1850 to 1950, steam locomotive haulage dominated Australia’s various rail systems, and, during that period, rail networks expanded from a few short routes in the big capital cities to huge networks reaching every corner of each state.

The book covers the great named express trains hauled by steam locomotives over the decades: Puffing Billy, The Ghan, 3801 and the rare Garratt steam engine.