The Railways of Great Britain: A Historical Atlas was a labour of love. Cobb, a lifelong railway enthusiast had, since the 1920s, attempted to travel on every line in the country, before being foiled by the mass closures of Dr Beeching. In his atlas he set out to record and map every railway and station opened between 1807 and 1994, superimposing them on the one inch to one mile Ordnance Survey map.
The idea arose after Cobb was asked to produce a postscript for the last PG Wodehouse book, Sunset at Blandings Castle, examining railway information in all of the Wodehouse books, to try to determine the location of Blandings Castle. He soon realised that there was no definitive cartographic study of railways and stations.
He started work in earnest in 1978, finished the last pages in 1996 and saw the atlas published, by Ian Allan, in 2004. Publication was financed by James Collyer-Fergusson, a friend and fellow enthusiast since he and Cobb were 14.
Despite the two-volume boxed set of 646 pages being priced at £150, the atlas went into a second edition within two years, Cobb welcoming the opportunity to correct "lots of silly mistakes".
