NEW MAY 2021.  In this original form, 'Railway Pictorial' was an astonishing venture immediately after the second world war. The project was started by G H Lake. When other magazines were struggling to obtain stocks of poor-quality paper, this one was committed to quality art paper. Nor was it a small magazine: the page size was much larger than the 'Railway Magazine' or 'Trains Illustrated' (roughly the size of present-day A4 paper), and each issue ran to 64 pages of editorial matter plus a few pages of advertisements which were on more ordinary paper for the time. Its rivals sold for one shilling, but the price of the 'Railway Pictorial' was fixed at five shillings - then a huge price to expect its readers to pay.

The covers were made from buff-coloured cardboard. Those for each of the three issues were identical apart from the text on the front which identified the individual issue. The first read 'No. 1 WINTER 1946/7'. It was intended to be published quarterly so the other two were described as SPRING 1947 and SUMMER 1947, though unsurprisingly both seemed to have been a bit late in appearing. It is odd that the wording 'No. 1' looks as if it was left unchanged in each succeeding printing, and apparently had to be altered to look like a 2 and a 3 later. Each back cover was blank apart from a small central image which was a three-quarter rear view of a Bulleid SR Pacific: you will find it hard to recognize that on the scans, but it is almost as difficult on the originals!

The issues here are described as a subscribers' edition and were individually numbered. They were purchased as a collection which presumably had originated from the same initial purchaser and their numbers may give a clue to how sales went. Number 1 was marked as copy 312, but both No.2 and No. 3 were only copy 43.

The contents list from each of the three issues may be seen HERE. As its name implies, good photographs well reproduced were considered important. Items of East Anglian interest in No. 1 include an article called 'A short-lived locomotive' which refers to GER 1506 of Ipswich, destined to be written off in the 1913 Colchester accident while working the up 'Norfolk Coast Express', and a photograph of CV&HR 0-6-2T No. 5 on a goods train in rural surroundings near Haverhill North. No. 2 has a page on an ancient four-wheeled tender labelled 'M&GN Jt Rly Fresh Water Tank No. 13A' lately photographed at Spalding, and a picture of bridge rebuilding at Fenchurch Street. No. 3 contains an article on the branch from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea, plus a view of Leytonstone station with an underground train leaving one platform (their limit at that moment) and an N7 and its train the other side of the platform with its connecting working from Epping and Ongar.

A planned fourth issue in the series never came out. After a brief lapse G H Lake launched a less lavish follow-up entitled 'Railway Pictorial and Locomotive Review'. By 1951 he became involved with the already-established rival magazine 'Railways' (see File MG014) which had long decribed itself as 'The pictorial railway journal', and from that date declared on its cover that it incorported Railway Pictorial and Locomotive Review.

You will receive the three issues as separate files. Each file is word-searchable and has bookmarks to the articles. They will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.