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LNER "On Either Side" - Date Query

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Peter C

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Hello!
I recently purchased a very interesting collection of items from eBay. One of the items was a large-ish booklet from the London North Eastern Railway called "On Either Side". It was designed to give information about what could be seen from the carriage windows on a journey along the East Coast Mainline along with some routes around Scotland. The copy I have does not have any kind of date on it, and seems to be much more basic in design on the cover than some examples I have seen on eBay. The only kind of marker for a date I can find is the odd reference to the year 1928, which means it's obviously from after 1928. The LNER came into existence in 1923 and disappeared in the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, which gives me a time-frame of around 20 years if we take into consideration the references to 1928 in the book.

So my question is essentially just this - when was this edition of the book made? I've had a look through and can't find any obvious references to dates, e.g. "20 years ago" or similar in reference to the historical events and locations illustrated in the book.

I'm aware that there may be no answer, but hopefully some brainy people on here will be able to help. :)

Thanks,

-Peter


P.S. I've attached photos of the cover and inside of the book for help in identifying the edition.

1595682160382.png
Above: Cover.

1595682199188.png
Above: Inside.
 
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hexagon789

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Hello!
I recently purchased a very interesting collection of items from eBay. One of the items was a large-ish booklet from the London North Eastern Railway called "On Either Side". It was designed to give information about what could be seen from the carriage windows on a journey along the East Coast Mainline along with some routes around Scotland. The copy I have does not have any kind of date on it, and seems to be much more basic in design on the cover than some examples I have seen on eBay. The only kind of marker for a date I can find is the odd reference to the year 1928, which means it's obviously from after 1928. The LNER came into existence in 1923 and disappeared in the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, which gives me a time-frame of around 20 years if we take into consideration the references to 1928 in the book.

So my question is essentially just this - when was this edition of the book made? I've had a look through and can't find any obvious references to dates, e.g. "20 years ago" or similar in reference to the historical events and locations illustrated in the book.

I'm aware that there may be no answer, but hopefully some brainy people on here will be able to help. :)

Thanks,

-Peter


P.S. I've attached photos of the cover and inside of the book for help in identifying the edition.

View attachment 81223
Above: Cover.

View attachment 81224
Above: Inside.

I have something similar but it's 1930s
 

Peter C

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Interesting - thanks. :)
I've noticed that on the page I took a photo of, Welwyn Garden City is described as a new town - Wikipedia says it was created as a garden city in 1920 and then became a town in 1948, which doesn't help much, but might push the date of this edition to the 1928 end of the 1928-1948 time-frame. It can't be from 1948 as it would have been by British Railways if so.

-Peter
 

Peter C

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Again - very interesting.
It seems to have used some sort of glossy paper. This supports the pre-WW2 idea as I highly doubt in the austerity of WW2 and the two years of the LNER's existence after it they would have been able to print it on that paper.

-Peter
 

hexagon789

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Interesting - thanks. :)
I've noticed that on the page I took a photo of, Welwyn Garden City is described as a new town - Wikipedia says it was created as a garden city in 1920 and then became a town in 1948, which doesn't help much, but might push the date of this edition to the 1928 end of the 1928-1948 time-frame. It can't be from 1948 as it would have been by British Railways if so.

-Peter

Definitely LNER-era and possibly pre-1938 given the photo of an A3 on the 'Scotsman' still. I'd imagine they'd want to use an up to date photo and the 'Scotsman' became regularly diagrammed for an A4 from 1938, the schedule being correspondingly tightened.
 

Peter C

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Ah OK - thanks :) I know very little about the practices of the LNER so trying to find about this book and just reading it to see what it was like is really interesting. The book also doesn't mention Mallard's speed record around Little Bytham at Stoke Bank either, suggesting to me it's from before 1938, as you say.

-Peter
 

hexagon789

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Ah OK - thanks :) I know very little about the practices of the LNER so trying to find about this book and just reading it to see what it was like is really interesting. The book also doesn't mention Mallard's speed record around Little Bytham at Stoke Bank either, suggesting to me it's from before 1938, as you say.

-Peter

Given that the LNER book online have does nothing but mention it's records, I'd say they'd be almost certain to mention Mallard's record in context - so I would say it's pre-1939 at the absolute least.
 

Peter C

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That's what I was thinking - the fastest steam engine in the world (I'd hope) would make for some space on the right page.

-Peter
 

hexagon789

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Done a bit of Googling and it seems there were several editions, at least 1925, 1935 and 1939. They all have bright front covers, yours I would actually say matches a photo of the contents of the 1939 edition but appears therefore to be missing it's cover.
 

hexagon789

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Here is the first page of the 1939:
20151014042627_Ticket (23) (Copy).jpg

I would say that matches the photo you have labelled as "cover"

However, the same publication has this as the outside cover, so I think you might be missing the cover off your copy unfortunately: 20151014042610_Ticket (22) (Copy).jpg
 

Peter C

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That's very interesting. It makes it the oldest item in my collection! As you say, it's unfortunate that my one seems to be missing the cover but it still has all of the information in it, so I'm not overly concerned. If I really wanted to get one with the cover, I could have another look on eBay.
The blue text on that first page from the 1939 version is different to the red text of mine but I assume there will have been various printing/production differences.

You've obviously put quite a bit of work into finding this out - thanks for that. It's nice to know when it was made!

Thanks once again,

-Peter
 

hexagon789

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That's very interesting. It makes it the oldest item in my collection! As you say, it's unfortunate that my one seems to be missing the cover but it still has all of the information in it, so I'm not overly concerned. If I really wanted to get one with the cover, I could have another look on eBay.
The blue text on that first page from the 1939 version is different to the red text of mine but I assume there will have been various printing/production differences.

You've obviously put quite a bit of work into finding this out - thanks for that. It's nice to know when it was made!

Thanks once again,

-Peter

The only other option is say a 1938 edition, which would perhaps account for the colour differences but I couldn't seem to find more than 3 editions
 

Peter C

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Hmm. I think saying it's from around 1938/1939 is a safe bet. Thanks for the help you've given in finding out when it's from - it's much appreciated.

-Peter :)
 

hexagon789

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It does look very interesting indeed. I've never paid much attention to the LNER before so it will be nice to see what they were like.

-Peter

I bought a book of a similar vintage a few weeks ago, "The Coronation" and other famous LNER trains, 1937 and written by Cecil J. Allen. It goes into the named services of the LNER in quite some detail together with photographs and lists of the fastest point-to-point timings it's a fascinating glimpse at the forefront of railway technology in pre-war 1930s Britain.[/I]
 

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The font used in the publication is Gill Sans, designed by Eric Gill which was adopted by the LNER in 1933
 
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