O.S. Nock

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Oswald Stevens Nock (1904-1994), usually known as O.S. Nock, was a British railway author and signal engineer by profession. Educated at Giggleswick School, he authored more than 140 books and 1000 magazine articles, which are often considered to be less than authoritative because of his voluminous output. He tended to re-use data, text and anecdotes in different books, including paragraphs culled in their entirety (check similarities in "Steam Locomotive" 1957 & "British Steam Railways" 1962). Having said that, Nock's style is easily read and he explains engineering issues in layman's terms, making the subject more accessible. His continuation of E.L. Ahrons' work, continuing steam locomotive development from 1925, is much more friendly to the layman or armchair enthusiast than Ahrons' seminal work "The British Steam Railway Locomotive Volume 1 From 1825 to 1925". If his work is treated as a general picture of railways in action, from the personal viewpoint of someone who was there and who interacted with railway personnel at various levels, his output is reasonably valid.

In the 1960s and the 1980s he lived in Batheaston, near Bath.

[edit] Books

Steam Locomotive. 1957.
Main Lines Across the Border. First Edition: 1960. Revised edition with Derek Cross 1982.
The South Eastern & Chatham Railway. 1961.
The Caledonian Railway. 1963.