Locomotive Stock Books 1930s

Description

The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society began publishing locomotive stock books in early 1935, just a few years after the Society was formed in 1928.  Initially, they were issued as supplements to the Society’s monthly magazine The Railway Observer but later issues were released as independent books.

Information about locomotives  – and railways in general – was scarce in the early days.  The RCTS was a pioneer in gathering, sharing, and collating data for the benefit of railway enthusiasts, usually via The Railway Observer.

The format of the stock books differed from the tabular layout of Ian Allan’s ABC guides which emerged in the 1940s and were targeted at spotters.  The pages of the RCTS stock books were arranged as compact lists, to be used as a reference source for the mature enthusiast.

The Society is now reissuing these historically important reference books as facsimiles.  It is not possible to match the production standards of a modern original, but we have done our best.  The text has been whitened, blemishes removed, and half-tone images processed into pixels.

Various other supplements, covering locomotive sheds, allocations, and naming, are included where appropriate.

There are four volumes in the series.  The books and supplements included in Volume 1 are:

• The Locomotive Stock of the Main Line Companies of Great Britain 31st December 1934 – 1st Edition
• The Locomotive Stock of the Main Line Companies of Great Britain 31st December 1935 – 2nd Edition
• Locomotive Sheds May 1936
• The Locomotive Stock of the Main Line Companies of Great Britain 31st December 1936 – 3rd Edition
• Appendix – Alterations during 1937, Additional Named Locomotives, Stock of Other Railways – 4th Edition
• Named Locomotives March 1937
• Locomotive Sheds September 1938
• Locomotive Allocations – GWR – March 1938
• The Locomotive Stock Book 1938 – 5th Edition
• The Locomotive Stock Book 1939 – 6th Edition