Trains

'Scotland For Your Holidays', BR poster, 1952

Poster produced for British Railways (BR), showing the Gresley A4 Class Pacific Plover locomotive crossing the Forth Bridge in Scotland. Artwork by Terence Cuneo (1907-1996). Cuneo withstood gales of over 50mph to sketch this scene from a girder high above the track. He recounted: 'Working conditions here were frankly terrifying. Although swaddled in a flying suit, duffel coat, balaclava and mittens, to say nothing of long woollen underwear - I was frozen!'.

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'Welwyn Garden City', railway poster, c 1930s

'Welwyn Garden City, A Greatly Improved Train Service to King's Cross'. Poster promoting Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire as a commuter town, showing a clock design superimposed onto stylised locomotives. The text includes rental and purchase prices of homes (up to £2, 000 for a house). The town was founded by social reformer and pioneer of town planning, Ebenezer Howerd (1850-1928) in 1920 with the aim of easing overpopulation in London. Artwork by C W Bacon. Printed by the Dangerfield Printing Co Ltd, London. Dimensions: 1016mm x 635mm.

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Orient Express in Snow

The Simplon-Orient Express train, snowbound at the village station of Cherkeskoy, sixty miles from its final destination, Constantinople (Istanbul). The train left Paris on 29 January and was due to arrive at Constantinople on 1 February. Instead, it remained snowed up for ten days. A train travelling in the opposite direction was similarly snowbound alongside it for 96 hours. With no heating on the train, the passengers of both trains huddled together in the station buffet, passing the time by playing cards, reading, listening to gramophone music and dancing, including improvised performances by a German ballerina.

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10417956