Last Year Of Regional Coloured Unified Style Timetable Covers ?

[Chrius56000]

Another Poser for Everyone!

Does anyone know what was the last year all Six Original Regions of B.R. produced an identical style of Passenger Service Timetable Book Cover with the Rectangular Cream Border and Lettering on a Regional Coloured background?

I believe the design was originally used by the L.N.E.R. before nationalisation!

From about 1960 Southern, Eastern, Western and North Eastern Regions started to use different styles moving away from Gill Sans lettering, with Univers and Grotesque making an appearance along with Rail Alphabet from about 1964, with S.R. and W.R. starting to add map outlines to the covers!

I do remember Eastern and LM used regional coloured covers without the border up until about 1963 tho, I think the Scottish Region retained the original border/light blue style until much later, till the mid 1960s!

(I would like to collect a matching unified set!)

Chris Williams

 

[Magdalia]

Another Poser for Everyone!

Does anyone know what was the last year all Six Original Regions of B.R. produced an identical style of Passenger Service Timetable Book Cover with the Rectangular Cream Border and Lettering on a Regional Coloured background?

I believe the design was originally used by the L.N.E.R. before nationalisation!

From about 1960 Southern, Eastern, Western and North Eastern Regions started to use different styles moving away from Gill Sans lettering, with Univers and Grotesque making an appearance along with Rail Alphabet from about 1964, with S.R. and W.R. starting to add map outlines to the covers!

I do remember Eastern and LM used regional coloured covers without the border up until about 1963 tho, I think the Scottish Region retained the original border/light blue style until much later, till the mid 1960s!

(I would like to collect a matching unified set!)

Chris Williams

Timetable World will help you a bit here:

Timetable World

timetableworld.com

Timetables | Click headings to sort

The Southern Region and London Midland Region had already changed by summer 1958. You are right that the Eastern Region changed in 1963.

 

[30907]

The Southern stopped using the border when the switch to the larger format took place in 1955, and the LMS changed after 1955 and by 1958 (also IIRC to a white spine).

 

[Taunton]

I seem to recall the Western covers in the 1950s were the standard pattern, but the colours reversed, mainly cream with brown lettering and borders, rather than the other way round.

I also believe the Southern did things quite differently, used a different printer, possibly the one who did ABC or Bradshaw, and their house font rather than the BR standard.

It would probably be possible to put together a complete set of covers images for all years from various websites, eBay

 

[30907]

I seem to recall the Western covers in the 1950s were the standard pattern, but the colours reversed, mainly cream with brown lettering and borders, rather than the other way round.

They did that for summer, winter was brown.

The Southern similarly used two shades of green, both before and after the change of format, to distinguish the seasons.

 

[Chrius56000]

I seem to recall the Western covers in the 1950s were the standard pattern, but the colours reversed, mainly cream with brown lettering and borders, rather than the other way round.

. . .The W.R. idea of using a Cream background with Brown lettering and border for Summer and Brown Background with Cream Border and Lettering for Winter was a natty idea, but not perpetuated by any of the other Regions of B.R. – was that another W.R. idiosyncrasy or are the other Regional Colours not amenable to Regional Coloured Border and Lettering on Cream Backgrounds?

Chris Williams

 

[30907]

. . .The W.R. idea of using a Cream background with Brown lettering and border for Summer and Brown Background with Cream Border and Lettering for Winter was a natty idea, but not perpetuated by any of the other Regions of B.R. – was that another W.R. idiosyncrasy or are the other Regional Colours not amenable to Regional Coloured Border and Lettering on Cream Backgrounds?

My guess is that a set of cream-based timetable covers would have been confusing - imagine 4 cream/white spines of similar size on the library shelf (LMR was white but thicker) - but more importantly I suspect the regions didn't prioritise such things.

 

[Taunton]

The GWR predecessor, on all the timetables I have from the 1940s, are also cream stiff paper covers, with brown letterpress printing. But mine are all summer ones. Apparently pre-nationalisation the other Big Four companies contracted Bradshaw to print their public timetables, while the GWR did their own.

I do recall visiting York, in 1963, and youthfully spending pocket money on the North Eastern Region timetable. How impressive, with an artwork of a Deltic on the front cover. Some nowadays cannot imagine, after the demise of Bradshaw, how difficult it was in those days to find detailed information on services outside your own home region. It also had the bright tangerine colour, as it seemed just about every aspect of signage, station paint, and such like had on the NER, a considerable contrast to the dark brown or dark red of previous familiarity.

 

[Lukeo2311]

I have various regional timetables in my collection as can be seen on my Flickr -UK Timetables , I still have lots to scan once I locate more of them!