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GWR books and booklets

Engines and Locomotives

The Great Western Railway first started to publish booklets in order to address the many enquiries it received for information about its engines and their names. These publications were soon recognised as being valuable publicity and advertising vehicles for the company, and the range of books available for those with an interest in such things grew considerably until the Second World War intervened.

LOCOMOTIVES of the Great Western Railway

This unusual publication was not a book as such, but rather a collection of 12 sepia toned plates each depicting a particular engine with each plate having a transucent cover page upon which was printed pertinent technical information. The whole was bound in an overall cover and held together by a ribbon. Each of the plates had an embossed border and could have been removed for framing. The cover carried an unsigned colour illustration of King George V, which looks to have been derived from a photograph.

The book did not carry any indication as to date or price when first published in 1929. Costing 1/- (one shilling) it appears not to have sold particularly well and was republished in exactly the same form and content in 1932, still undated, but now having Price 6d printed in the bottom right hand corner of the cover. Possibly a sign of old stock being used up, the price was sometimes rubber stamped onto the cover instead.

Click or tap on the 1932 edition thumbnail to see a leaflet advertising the publication of that edition.

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Great Western Railway Engines Names, Numbers, Types & Classes

Interest was such that, starting in February 1904, a list was published of all Great Western named engines in the Great Western Magazine which, although being the 'house magazine', was also available to the general public. Various additions and deletions to the list were noted in relevant editions of the magazine as they occurred, and a complete list was published from time to time such as the one which was published in two parts in the December 1906 and January 1907Click or tap to see a gallery of the two parts editions.

In 1911 the GWR started publishing a series of booklets for general sale listing the various classes and numbers of the locomotives in their fleet. As time passed these booklets grew in content and style from the simple first series until, by the short third series, they had developed into comprehensive books. We are attempting to collect an example of each of these publications and those in our collection are pictured, with any missing ones in a series noted for completeness.

Series 1

These booklets were all noted as being Published by the Great Western Railway Magazine, Paddington Station, London,W. and were edited by A.J.L.White. All eleven booklets in this series followed a common format having no cover illustration but with different colour covers, each carrying the year of publication. The first edition, published in 1911, was simply a copy of the lists previously published in the magazine and bore the simple title of Great Western Railway Names of Engines. In addition to the simple lists of named engines, this first edition also carried twelve full-page monochrome images of different locomotives, not all of which bore a name. The title of the second edition, published in 1914, was amended to be Great Western Railway Engines and all subsequent editions reflected the expanded contents with the sub-title of Names, Numbers, Types and Classes.

Only the final two editions carried any form of advertising material. The 1928 edition contains two pages of publicity for other GWR books, The 10:30 Limited, Caerphilly Castle and The ‘King’ of Railway Locomotives – all at 1/- each, and the jigsaws King George V (a 300 piece version at 3/6 is also mentioned), Britain’s Mightiest, Cathedral, Swansea Docks, Oxford, St. Julien, Speed, The Cornish Riviera Express, and The Freight Train – all at 2/6 each. The final edition, published in 1929, retained the GWR books list of the 1928 edition but the jigsaws page now features headings Jigsaws at 2/6, Jigsaws at 3/6 and Jigsaws at 5/-. The 300 piece King George V puzzle is the 3/6 one whilst The Torbay Express is priced at 5/-, with the list of cheaper jigsaws remaining unchanged from the previous edition.

Series 2

All books from this point are marked as being Published by the Great Western Railway, Paddington Station, London W.2. This second series of booklets were still stapled but no longer kept to the previous plain cover.

Series 3

With this third series of books the content, whilst similar to previous editions, has been enhanced and extended and the format changed to become a bound book, uniform with other similar books already published (such as the ‘for boys of all ages’ book series). In addition to the numbered pages, each edition contained eight ruled pages at the end for making notes.

The three books shown here form part of a series under the collective title of Books 'for Boys of All Ages' and, as such, are dealt with in more detail on the page which covers that complete series. They are nonetheless included here for completeness as they also fall under the general category of 'Engines and Locomotives'. Some other books in that particular series also contained chapters on various locomotives of the Great Western Railway.

Whilst not a book, or even a small booklet, we include this folded leaflet here as it too falls under the general category of publications by the Great Western Railway about their engines. The GWR were very proud of the 'King' class of locomotive which was introduced in 1927, and keen to extract maximum publicity from its introduction into service. The engine 'King George V' is shown as originally turned out in 1927 without the bell which was presented during its visit to the United States in that year to participate in the centenary celebrations of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.

Click or tap on the thumbnail to see the leaflet unfolded.

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