The ABC Rail Guide

[AY1975]

Does anyone know if the ABC Rail Guide is still available, or if not, when it was last published?

I seem to recall seeing a copy of it about ten years ago, although I think by that time it was published by a company that was independent of Network Rail or the Association of Train Operating Companies. Presumably it was published under licence from NR and/or ATOC, though. Obviously in BR days it was published by BR itself.

Did you prefer to use the ABC or the all-line timetable (nowadays referred to as the National Rail Timetable) to look up train times? I suppose if you lived in or near to London and mainly made journeys to and from London, you might have found the ABC easier to understand, as it had all the stations listed alphabetically. For each station it told you which London terminus to go from and had the train times and fares to and from London. There were also full timetables for most lines in London and the neighbouring counties at the back.

Also, does anyone know when the ABC was first published? Were there separate editions for each railway company before nationalisation in 1948 or was it published jointly by all the different railway companies?

I believe that there were also separate editions of the ABC based on travel from the other major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

 

[hexagon789]

Does anyone know if the ABC Rail Guide is still available, or if not, when it was last published?

I seem to recall seeing a copy of it about ten years ago, although I think by that time it was published by a company that was independent of Network Rail or the Association of Train Operating Companies. Presumably it was published under licence from NR and/or ATOC, though. Obviously in BR days it was published by BR itself.

Did you prefer to use the ABC or the all-line timetable (nowadays referred to as the National Rail Timetable) to look up train times? I suppose if you lived in or near to London and mainly made journeys to and from London, you might have found the ABC easier to understand, as it had all the stations listed alphabetically. For each station it told you which London terminus to go from and had the train times and fares to and from London. There were also full timetables for most lines in London and the neighbouring counties at the back.

Also, does anyone know when the ABC was first published? Were there separate editions for each railway company before nationalisation in 1948 or was it published jointly by all the different railway companies?

I believe that there were also separate editions of the ABC based on travel from the other major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

1853 first published, 2007 last issue.

 

[30907]

It was never an official Railway publication, though the SR used its table format in preference to the standard one for a few years around 1972 - this produced a very compact book (which even included the Bluebell and KESR!).
(I don't think any other region could have done this, as the ABC only produced tables for the London and SE area - indeed, only for suburban lines: I have a 1954 one where the WR table stops at Maidenhead.)
OT, but on the subject of being "official": between the wars and afterwards, the companies used the same layout and typesetting as Bradshaw.

 

[Altfish]

1853 first published, 2007 last issue.

Isn't this it?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ABC-RAIL...136116&hash=item5229e87cfb:g:9poAAOSwL05d87Ss

That one's 2019

 

[hexagon789]

Isn't this it?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ABC-RAIL...136116&hash=item5229e87cfb:g:9poAAOSwL05d87Ss

That one's 2019

No, that's a traction/rolling stock book, not the same as the ABC Railway Guide which was an alphabetical timetable.

 

[Bookd]

The company that produced the ABC also did shipping and air service ABCs - when air fares were standardised the latter had timetables and fares for every air service in the world.

 

[Taunton]

The ones for provincial areas seem to have been produced by local publishers, some of which had bus services as well.

The ABC format was devised in Victorian times to combat the difficulties with using Bradshaw, which you had to be a bit of a nerd to comprehend (would however obviously include most here). Its downside was it only listed destinations, alphabetically, from the main London termini, and was really aimed just at those living or working there. If you lived in Manchester it was pointless, just one column of trains to/from London, though where there were multiple routes/companies it brought them all together. It did add proper London suburban timetables at the back, and in former times these (including the Metropolitan Line etc) had always been rather coyly shown by Bradshaw and even the rail companies themselves, who just said "frequent". The ABC typically showed the full detail, a reversal from their main line approach. The company became well known postwar for an equivalent ABC air timetable of all the airlines of the world, which every travel agency always subscribed to, but the pre-war train ABC (I have a 1939 one) also showed plane services in Britain and across Europe, mentioning which the rail destinations selected included Paris etc.

It had a range of publishers over time but was in continuous production. I think it finally gave up early in the 2000s. They must have not been able to copyright the name because all sorts of other unconnected publications were called ABC as well - probably the best known to members here were the Ian Allan trainspotters books which were called long called ABC as well.

 

[midland1]

I have a SR ABC one for May 1969, it had red cover, 223 pages. I also have the SR one for the same time 1163 pages in large format, green cover. The SR one with the green cover for May 1973 was in ABC format, 256 pages, but did not say ABC Guide on cover unlike the 1969 one.

 

[30907]

I have a SR ABC one for May 1969, it had red cover, 223 pages. I also have the SR one for the same time 1163 pages in large format, green cover. The SR one with the green cover for May 1973 was in ABC format, 256 pages, but did not say ABC Guide on cover unlike the 1969 one.

Interesting, didn't remember that. IIRC the official BR(S) timetable was still in 3 divisional volumes (the inconvenient change came with the modern image large format) and ABC obviously saw a market, which SR then cottoned on to.

 

[duffield]

Just to chip in my two pence worth, I worked on the BR timetable computer systems around 1986-1990, and as far as the ABC railguide was concerned all I remember is that we used to send off an old-school IBM open reel computer tape with a 'raw' timetable extract to the ABC publishers for them to reformat and make into the ABC guide.
As far as the GBTT (Great Britain Timetable) was concerned it went through various stages of automatic processing and manual editing on the BR mainframe systems to get something fairly close to the final printed version but again as far as I remember it went off to an external company for typesetting and printing.

Anyhow, it's 30 years ago now so it's a bit hazy!

All these systems have since been replaced so I'm not revealing anything confidential!