Hello
I recently obtained, through the "Free to a good home" section on RMWeb, a set of three Modern Railway Working volumes - these being Vol. 2, Vol. 5, and Vol. 6. On the inside title page of Vol. 2, it seems to list 1912 as the publishing date, and in Vol. 5 and Vol. 6, 1913 is the year given. I've done some looking into this online and it seems as though these books were published in 1912 and 1913, but that they may have been reprinted at some point. I've attached some photos of Vol. 2 - the cover and title page are the same in all of them bar the date on the latter - and I was wondering if someone might be able to give a more definitive answer.
Another question is, what were these made for? They're heavy books, and they go into an awful lot of detail about pretty much everything on the railway at the time. I understand that, given the time they were first published, it wouldn't have been odd for someone to own the full set of eight volumes and have them on a fancy bookshelf in a fancy house, but they seem more like textbooks in the information they provide than anything else.
Thanks,
-Peter
I recently obtained, through the "Free to a good home" section on RMWeb, a set of three Modern Railway Working volumes - these being Vol. 2, Vol. 5, and Vol. 6. On the inside title page of Vol. 2, it seems to list 1912 as the publishing date, and in Vol. 5 and Vol. 6, 1913 is the year given. I've done some looking into this online and it seems as though these books were published in 1912 and 1913, but that they may have been reprinted at some point. I've attached some photos of Vol. 2 - the cover and title page are the same in all of them bar the date on the latter - and I was wondering if someone might be able to give a more definitive answer.
Another question is, what were these made for? They're heavy books, and they go into an awful lot of detail about pretty much everything on the railway at the time. I understand that, given the time they were first published, it wouldn't have been odd for someone to own the full set of eight volumes and have them on a fancy bookshelf in a fancy house, but they seem more like textbooks in the information they provide than anything else.
Thanks,
-Peter