Off the Rails
The Story of Crewe Steam Train Driver Alfred Jenkins
An occupational history built around one railwayman’s working life.
Alfred Jenkins spent his working life on the railway, progressing through the disciplined world of the steam footplate in Crewe. His career provides a way to examine skill, hierarchy, danger, pride and the identities created by railway work in the first half of the twentieth century.
Why I wrote this book
Alfred Jenkins was my great-grandfather, and his railway career had already appeared within the broader family story told in From Fields to Railways. I wanted to give that working life room of its own. A railwayman’s career was not simply a sequence of jobs: it involved training, hierarchy, technical knowledge, discipline, physical risk and a strong occupational culture.
The book therefore uses Alfred’s life as a route into the social world of steam. Crewe is central to the story because the railway was not merely an employer there; it shaped the town, its rhythms and the identities of generations of families.
Where the research began
The research developed from family records and the reconstruction of Alfred’s career, including his long association with the Great Western Railway at Crewe. That evidence was then placed alongside the wider history of locomotive work so that his promotions and duties could be understood within the system in which they occurred.
Sources and method
The book combines genealogical records, family material, newspapers, railway and occupational evidence and historical context. Where the records document Alfred directly, I identify that evidence. Where the surviving record cannot tell us exactly what he thought or experienced on a particular day, the book uses contextual material to explain the working environment rather than presenting reconstruction as personal testimony.
How it fits into my wider work
This book is part biography, part occupational history. It reflects the same concern found throughout my work: that ordinary working lives deserve to be reconstructed with the same seriousness normally reserved for public figures. It also complements From Fields to Railways by moving from a family’s long social transition to the detail of one man’s trade.
Publication details
- Author: Antony David Davies
- Published: January 2026
- Formats: Kindle and paperback