Monday 23 January 2012

The Railway Company Postcard


The early 20th century saw an increase in the amount of promotional material British railway companies produced. One form this took was the postcard, packs of  which could be purchased from vending machines at stations. Indeed, between 1899 and 1903 eight companies produced them. All those shown were sold by the London and North Western Railway and have images of the company's trains and rolling stock. However, in addition to this, the packs contained images of resorts and districts the railways served, the ships they owned and their buildings. Thus, before 1914 the London and North Western apparently sold over 11 million cards. However, this craze quickly waned and after World War One the railway companies produced very few.[1] (All pictures are clickable)
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[1] Simmons, Jack, 'Postcards', The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, (Oxford, 1997), p.390


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