CHEONA PUBLICATIONS

Welcome to the website !

Cheona Publications was first started in 1995 when Geoff Gamble produced a book on the British Railways Diesel Multiple Units with Brian Golding. This book contains informative text and 360 line diagrams for each of the DMU classes including the 4-wheel railbuses, Southern Region DEMUs and the Blue Pullmans.

Geoff then developed the well received 'Railways In Profile' series of books in 1996, which started with a look at the British Railway Open and Hopper type wagons. Just before Geoffs untimely death at the end of 2000, Book No. 11 "British Railway Vans - Volume 2" was published. A good friend of Geoff's, Peter Midwinter of Railways Unlimited and The Railway Study Centre (formerly of Manchester, now North Wales) acquired Cheona the publishing business and quickly had a new book printed. This book, No. 12 'GWR Stations (Wales)' was compiled by Colin Judge as a tribute to Geoff.

Now that Cheona is based at its new home in North Wales, it is intended to expand the range and scope of railway books published. We always welcome enquiries from prospective new authors and they should contact Peter Midwinter to discuss the proposal at the first instance. Likewise, if you have good quality photographs or transparencies which you would like to see in print or wish to sell then contact us by post or phone as below.

** Important - if you have a trade enquiry about placing an order then please contact **

** Peter Midwinter at the address, phone or fax number listed below **

Latest News

Update 05/11/09 -

Ok folks, its been a while since the site was last updated, and for that we apologise. However, there is some news in that a new book has just been published - GWR Wagons before 1948 - Volume 2 Diagrams S Fish Wagons to AA TOAD Brake Vans and DD Tank Wagons; Compiled by R. Tourret and the cost is £10.95 - this is the first increase in 7 years on this size of book. P&P remains the same at £1.00 for the first book and £0.50 each for each further book. 64 pages with mono and colour photos. Given the amount of photographic material it is possible that we will produce a third volume. Have a look on the Railways in Profile subpage here for more details. Please note that GWR Wagons before 1948 - Volume 1 is now Out of Print but we are looking at re-printing a small run of books off soon.

Work in Progress

Book No. 16 will look at BR Travelling Cranes. This is still being published - date TBC

LNER Wagons before 1948 Vol. 2 - TBC

Track Maintainance Vehicles dates - TBC

Volume 4 of the highly-acclaimed all-colour British Railway Air-Braked Stock series will essentially be an update to Volumes 1 to 3 as there have been many changes since these books were published. The book will provisionally include wagons that have been scrapped, refurbished and converted since Vols 1 -3 and new designs of freight stock that has appeared on the scene.

Over the past several years since this website has been running, we have received a many enquiries about the long out of print but highly sought after A Pictorial Record of British Railways DMUs' which was originally published by Geoff Gamble. Progress on this has been severly hampered due to missing and incomplete material and the condition of the master films. One idea that has cropped up would be to republish the book as a series of booklets which would allow the book to be split up into 8 or 9 sections. This has the advantage of allowing such a booklet to be bound so that the booklet pages can be opened out flat to aid the modeller or the enthusiast. What do you think of this idea ? Would a series of booklets containing the DMU diagrams appeal to you or would you prefer the entire book in one edition ? Another possible option would be to create a CD or DVD of scanned images which you can browse and then print off the appropriate DMU diagram sheets.