by Andrew Waugh » Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:13 am
I presume you mean 'Level Crossings' by Stanley Hall & Peter van der Mark?
The two books complement each other. Hall & van der Mark is essentially a history of level crossing focussing on policy and the drivers of the policy changes (often safety/accidents). Pinkstone & Peart focus on the technology. Of course there is overlap; changes in policy usually drive changes in changes in technology.
If you are looking for the *history* of the technology, Pinkstone & Peart are stronger on the modern history of flashing lights and lifting barriers, than on the traditional mechanical gates. If you have the IRSE green book on level crossings, you are unlikely to learn much that is new from these sections. They focus on the technology, rather than the history of the technology, and they do not really get to grips with the different approaches by the pre-grouping companies or the signalling contractors. To be fair, mechanical gate technology largely evolved prior to 1900 and is very poorly documented.
Pinkstone & Peart do not make the mistake in Hall & van der Mark who infer that the requirement for gated level crossings consistently began in 1839. In fact, the 1839 Act largely involved extending the existing (1835) requirements for highways to also apply to turnpikes.
I felt that neither book really dealt with the international (largely US prior to WWII) development of flashing lights and lifting barriers prior to their introduction in the UK. (Though both discuss the European trips of the BTC/MOT leading up to the introduction of automatic crossings.) This leads, for example, to the faintly curious feature that flashing lights in the UK seem to be known as 'wig wags' without any explanation as to why or what wig wags actually are. It is quite possible, of course, that this accurately reflects the UK knowledge of international practice at the time.
The production values of Hall & van der Mark's book (published by Ian Allen) are higher than Pinkstone & Peart.