Facts About British Railways 1939. The British Railway’s Press Office. On behalf of the Great Western, London and North Eastern, London Midland and Scottish, and Southern Railway Companies. February, 1939 [ebook]

£1.55

Booklet, thin card cover, 5”x 3”, pp.32. The statistics given are of course for 1938, which makes them of particular interest as reporting the last “normal” year of trading, for “The Big Four.” before state control at the outbreak of war in September 1939. We associate the term “British Railways” with the nationalised undertaking of post 1948, but it had been used jointly by the Companies in publicity material distributed in the USA and Europe from the 1920s, and in Britain in connection with a campaign to secure a “Fair Deal” for the railways in the face of largely unregulated competition from the road haulage industry during the following decade.

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This booklet, part of that continuing effort was issued by a small Press Office under the Auspices of the General Manager’s Conference, a body established in the 19th c by the Railway Clearing House to provide a forum for discussion of matters of mutual interest. By 1939, it was chaired by Sir James Milne, of the GWR by then the senior General Manager, Sir Herbert Walker (Southern) and Sir Raph Wedgwood (LNER) both having retired. The Press Office would continue to operate during WWII, under the auspices of the Railway Executive Committee, then again in peacetime under the GM’s Conference, in the fight for fair terms for railway shareholders under nationalisation.

I particularly like the very simple Art Deco cover design, Just two or three patches of colour, and a handful of straight lines and we have a train, a signal and telegraph poles.

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