MRS Journal No. 62 (Autumn 2016)

Table of Contents

• The Midland Railway On The Home Front And The OBE / By Roger Brettle
• Tank Loading Ramp
• Mail On The Midland Railway And Its Constituents, 1840–1875: Part 4 / By John Soer
• The Irish Sea Tickets Of The Midland Railway / By David Geldard
• MR Officers’ Annual Ball, Derby
• Foreigners / By Ian Howard
• Private Owner Wagons On The Settle & Carlisle Railway And In Craven Generally / By Jamie Guest
• Query Corner
• Comments on Items in Previous Journals

• Front cover
  Hugh Llewelyn took this fine photograph of the frontage to Worcester Shrub Hill (joint GWR/MR) station in August 1982. It shows well the Georgian-style architecture built in 1865 mainly of engineering brick with stone facing to the design of the engineer, Edward Wilson. This photograph illustrates the station at Worcester from which the mail bags were dispatched, as described in the introduction to John Soer’s fourth instalment of his ‘Mail on the Midland’. But Wilson’s station was not the first station here. That one was opened in 1850, under joint ownership of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton and the Midland railways. Until 1852 it was used only as a terminus for the Midland’s services from Birmingham.
  [© Hugh Llewelyn: reproduced under a Creative Common licence]
• Rear cover
  Our Back Cover shows an attractive Midland Railway poster advertising the Midland’s services to Scotland. It is not dated, but it was probably in circulation in the years just before WW1. There was then no more need to highlight the outstanding dining facilities on these Midland trains. Clearly, it had become general knowledge amongst the wealthy class who would have used the service. The claim that the Midland had the ‘Most Interesting Route to Scotland’ was no idle boast. Whether the train took the line north to Derby via Leicester or to Nottingham via Melton Mowbray, the passenger was treated to lovely views over the pastoral counties of the Midlands. From Derby north, there were the lovely Derwent and Amber valleys and, after the industrial powerhouse of the line through Sheffield to Leeds, there was the varied scenery of the Aire valley before the splendour of the Settle and Carlisle line. Then, there was the final majesty of the Scottish lines. One from Carlisle over the G&SWR line from Dumfries up the Nith valley into Ayrshire and thence to Glasgow. The other via the NBR Waverley route to Edinburgh over the Scottish Border hills.
  [Ian Howard collection]