Martin Farebrother has always been interested in railway history and contemporary transport policy, and Joan in architecture and industrial archaeology. They own a cottage near Montreuil in the Pas-de-Calais and interest in the closed railways in that area led to their first railway book, Tortillards of Artois – The Metre Gauge Railways and Tramways of the Western Pas-de-Calais . During research into this they became interested in the area to the east, which was the First World War Arras sector of the front line, and since then more generally in WW1 railways.