Bourne's 1838 publications "A Series of Lithographic Drawings on the London and Birmingham Railway", showed the construction of the railway from London to Birmingham in the year 1837–38. For this work Bourne had translated his original watercolours into lithographs. It was accompanied by a text, entitled "Topographical and descriptive Accounts of the Origin, Progress, and general Execution of that great national Work", written by John Britton. Britton was known in his days from the publication "The architectural antiquities of Great Britain", which had appeared in multiple volumes since 1807. Britton (1838; p. 14) wrote about Bourne's work: