And ploughing through them has been well worth his and our while as John Ramsbottom the man emerges from the drier documents of history - family papers having gone missing - to take this deserved posthumous acclaim.

Ramsbottom, Todmorden born and virtually self-taught in engineering, began exercising his skills in the family's cotton business, known as the Steam Factory at Salford, just off Rochdale Road near Todmorden town centre.

His journey took him to the top of his profession, with influence that lasted a century on Britain's railways and is an ongoing one in all our lives today - the split piston ring, still used in vehicles today, was a Ramsbottom patent.

Two of the great railway works which dominated not just late Victorian life but also played a key role well into the 20th century were largely laid out by Ramsbottom, first at Crewe for the London and North Western Railway and then, following a dispute, at Horwich for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

John Ramsbottom pioneered techniques of standardisation for building and repairing steam locomotives that revolutionised production and made the railways that benefited from them the most efficient of their day.

Ramsbottom began these tasks amid personal tragedy with the death of his first wife and continued until a month before his death. Despite the lack of surviving personal papers the author does not have many gaps in his story and has managed to reveal much about his character.

The man who showed Edward, Prince of Wales, around Crewe works in 1866 also had time to remonstrate with the railway's board the conditions his staff were living in, and the author's finding what seems to be an account compiled from someone very close to the engineer shows a proud and principled man aware of his achievements and wishing them to be recognised.

It was said he left Crewe due to ill-health but this indicates otherwise, and the account of Ramsbottom's burning one year's contractor's commissions he had been sent to the value of between £20,000 and £25,000 (but not taken up) while the LNWR board were jibbing at paying him a £5,000 per year salary brings him vividly back to life.

Author Pennie, with a host of excellently reproduced images, photographs, drawings and diagrams, has succeeded in producing a book that while full of necessary technical detail for the railway enthusiast is very readable for those who aren't experts.

It stakes a claim for Ramsbottom's achievements to be considered alongside those of Todmorden's two Nobel prizewinnning scientists, Sir John Cockcroft and Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson - and it is a convincing case.

l John Ramsbottom: A Victorian Engineering Giant by Robin Pennie is published by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Society at £9.95.