YORKSHIRE'S a big county, and it takes some getting around.

Since the industrial age began, Yorkshiremen have been using all sorts of wheeled transport to travel around their county. And in his latest book, York local historian Paul Chrystal has gathered together more than 80 old photographs that illustrate more than a few of them.

It is, he admits, an unashamedly nostalgic book, one that takes in "traps, carts and horse-driven coaches, trams, trolleybuses, motor cars, early steam engines, riverboats, agricultural machinery, vans and lorries, trains, buses, charabancs, motorbikes, bicycles and tricycles." Oh, and at least one aircraft, as you'll see from the selection of photographs reproduced here.

We only have room for a few of Paul's photographs on these pages - but we hope you'll agree that some of them, such as the early electric bus charging up Clifton, and the Rowntree Train at No 1 Landing Stage in Wigginton Road, are great...

The photos on these pages show:

1. An early electric bus being charged up at the York Corporation Accumulator Station at Clifton

2. A Rowntree train at No 1 Landing Stage in Wigginton Road in 1971. Rowntree Halt at Hambleton Terrace was a small, unmanned railway stop on the Foss Islands Branch Line located on the southern edge of the chocolate factory, writes Paul. It was opened in 1927 to provide an un-timetabled passenger service to the Rowntree factory for workers commuting from the Selby and Doncaster areas

3. York's first electric tramcar in 1910. Electric trams were introduced that year to replace the horse-drawn trams which had served York until then, Paul writes. More than eight miles of track were laid for the new trams, and electrification cost the then-princely sum of £89,741. The first day of the new electric tram service - January 20, 1910 - saw a staggering 6,786 passenger journeys, with fares totalling £35, 18s and 5d. You can get a sense of the excitement the new trams caused from the photograph...

4. A steam lorry belonging to the John J Hunt brewery, which had its registered offices in Spurriergate

5. Air crew loading 500 lb high explosive bombs onto the Whitleys of 58 Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in 1941. Linton was one of 11 stations allocated to the Royal Canadian Air Force's No 6 Group, Paul writes. The group flew 40,822 operational sorties during the course of the war. It dropped 126,000 tons of ordnance, but a total of 814 aircraft and about 5,700 airmen never returned from operations

6. The York Gas Company travelling showroom

Stephen Lewis

BLOB Wheels Around Yorkshire by Paul Chrystal is published by Stenlake priced £10.