More Cutaways

No apologies for returning to this subject so quickly. Today’s cutaways are all the work of Leslie Ashwell Wood whose drawings were a regular feature in the Eagle comic each week throughout the 1950’s. The monochrome illustrations come from an Odhams Press book on railways (The World’s Railways and How They Work) published in 1947. This was a major commission for Ashwell Wood and included over 20 of his cutaway drawings. The production values are low, the quality of reproduction is poor but despite that it is well worth posting a generous selection for wider consumption. Above is a drawing in colour from 1959 published in the Eagle. It features an electric locomotive as employed on the Metropolitan line between Rickmansworth and Liverpool Street. These were a familiar sight to your Metroland correspondent as he travelled, with some reluctance, to a seat of learning in Watford.




As for Wood himself, Steve Holland did a brilliant, if inconclusive, piece of biographical research published on his Bear Alley blogsite. The bibliography reveals how prolific he was and it would seem a possibility that in his later years he became a self-publisher. These examples from his earlier work for Odhams gave him the opportunity to apply his talents to such diverse subjects as Grand Central Station, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a Train Ferry, all of which were remorselessly dissected and labelled in the time honoured fashion. There will be more from this genre in future postings.