Description

One of the first, if not the first, “part-work” to deal with railways. Launched at 9d per copy in August 1911 (although some later issues carry paper stickers increasing the price to 1/-) It was also about the first time that a quality railway publication was within the reach of a prudent schoolboy, prepared to sacrifice sherbet dips, gobstoppers, “The Magnet” and “Chatterbox” for a couple of weeks.

Each issue included a colour frontispiece of the railway’s crest, a full page colour print of one of the company’s passenger carriages, and a stunning double page spread of a locomotive. In this case an Aspinall “Highflyer”.  It seems that having committed to 12 issues, some of the smaller railways had to be combined into one.  Apart from this one, the North British, Great North of Scotland, and the Highland shared an issue, as did the Caledonian and the Glasgow and South Western. The pagination in this book is a little confused, as it was a “Sweeper-up” for bound volume 2.  “Our Home Railways” was also issued as a two volume set, but these and two modern single volume reprints were less than satisfactory, in that for production reasons, the colour plates had to be “grouped” together, divorced from the text relating to their railways. One of the modern reprints even produced the colour plates in black & white… Worth having for the colour plates alone!

PREVIEW BELOW – MAY TAKE A WHILE TO LOAD.