Author: Helena Wojtczak
Publisher: The Hastings Press
Format: Hardback
Pages: 376
Railway Women - Exploitation, Betrayal and Triumph in the Workplace.
With a compelling combination of humour and indignation, Helena Wotczak reveals the untold story of the British railwaywoman, charting her progress from exploited drudge in the 1830s to steam engine driver by the 21st century, using an engrossing collage of historic and contemporary documents, photographs, official reports and vivid personal testimonies.
Within the first two chapters we enter a world of sabotage, gruesome fatalities, pig-stealing, transvestism, muder, train crashes, a shipwreck, bombs, capture by the enemy, strikes, anti-woman agitation, heroic acts and tragic deaths.
As we trace the steps of women staking their place in one of Britain's largest and most well-known industries, we learn of abysmal exploitation and shameful betrayal. Ultimately the story develops - via the crashing of male bastions, accompanied by appalling harassment - into one of triumph.