It gives me great pleasure to be announcing this new partnership with the PWI with regard to my electrification book, meaning that for the first time the hardback edition will be available for anyone to buy via the PWI bookstore.

This marks the latest in a series of steps that the PWI has taken to expand its technical offer to the railway electrification community. Since joining the PWI three years ago I have been hugely impressed with how seriously the leadership team take their new mission to provide electrification engineers with a natural home – in the same way that they always have for the track engineering community. In recent years the PWI has run a series of electrification conferences, now includes at least one electrification article in every edition of the journal, and most recently has begun its annual electrification diploma course – a UK first.

So I was very pleased to be approached by the PWI with the idea of them publishing my book. For those of your who aren’t aware, “Overhead Line Electrification for Railways”, now in its 6th edition, is an approachable and comprehensive study of OLE for beginners and trainees, or those in adjacent disciplines who want to gain an appreciation of the subject. Starting life as a free online download, it progressed to the point where there was sufficient interest in a hardback edition to justify a couple of print runs in 2019 and 2021. These were funded via kickstarter campaigns, which while a fun way to secure and fulfil orders, meant that anyone missing these narrow print run windows was not able to secure a copy.

Our new arrangement means that anyone wanting a physical copy can now buy one, without waiting for a kickstarter. I’m also very pleased to say that PWI recognises that the success of the hardback is in no small part due to the continued availability of the PDF version, and so that version will remain free to download.

Finally, the arrangement means that anyone taking the PWI Electrification Diploma will receive a copy of the book as part of the course.

To pre-order your copy here; or to try before you buy, download the free version at www.ocs4rail.com