The city of Chester has often been referred to in travel literature as the 'Gateway to North Wales' and this is in many ways due to its past importance as a railway centre. It was at one time served by two main railway stations and services were run into North Wales from both of them. The smaller of the two, Chester Northgate, was owned at one time by the Cheshire Lines Committee and was simply a two platform terminus. From here the CLC ran its own trains to Manchester Central and the station was also the starting point for the LNER service to Wrexham Central via Hawarden Bridge.
The much larger station, Chester General, was used originally by the London Midland and Scottish and the Great Western Railways. From here, lines radiated to Birkenhead Woodside, Holyhead, and Llandudno (the North Wales coast line), Warrington and Crewe. There was a branch line to Whitchurch which left the Crewe line at Tattershall Junction and another one to Denbigh and Corwen which left the main coast line at Mold Junction, three miles away and just over the Welsh border. Last and by no means least the Great Western trains to London (Paddington) and Barmouth used the down North Wales slow line to reach their own system at Saltney Junction two miles from Chester.
Mr Wainwright began photographing trains in Cheshire, Shropshire and North Wales from the mid-forties until the end of steam and one of his favourite locations was Saltney Junction. As the pages of this book reflect, the locomotives to be seen and photographed in the area were many and varied. Almost all types of ex-Great Western engines could be seen at Chester at one time or another with the exception of the 'Kings' which were not allowed past Saltney Junction into Chester until the preservation era. A large selection of ex-LMS and BR Standard types could be found at the head of trains and 'down the coast', and some of the latter, usually Class 5s, were also used on Western Region trains at times.