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TheRailway Dispatch

@therailwaydispatch

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Railway history, delivered by post.
Monthly parcel: six replica pieces from one real journey. £14.99.
Framed relief route maps

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Any railway line. Yours.

Tell us where it starts and ends. We model it in raised relief and email you pictures within 5 working days, with two rounds of changes if you want them. Nothing is made until you approve it, and you get a full refund any time before that.

£199.99 plus delivery. 10% off memberships and framed maps until 25 October. Which line would you pick? Link in bio.

#customgift #railwayart #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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3 days ago

Our auto-captions misheard a few names: it's Euston, Kinnaber Junction and Montrose Basin.

Two rival routes, one signal box, and a race through the night to Aberdeen.

In August 1895 the overnight trains from London to Aberdeen were racing. At Kinnaber Junction, 38 miles short of Aberdeen, the East Coast and West Coast routes became one line, and the signalman there could take only one train at a time. The North British paid for the box and a Caledonian man worked it. The race is the first story in our parcel, and Part One posts on 3 November. Link in bio.

Sources: O. S. Nock, The Railway Race to the North (1958), as cited on Wikipedia; Railscot, Kinnaber Junction.
Film: The Hellenic Trainspotters, Great Central Railway 2017, CC BY 3.0. Lever frame photo: Maggie Stephens, CC BY 2.0. Signal box interior (1890), Euston Arch (1890s), Howden engravings (1907) and the Caledonian Railway postcard (1895) are public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

#railwayhistory #trains #history #steamtrains #scotland by @therailwaydispatch

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12 days ago

New here? Start with this.

The Railway Dispatch is railway history by post. Every month we send you six replica pieces of railway paper from one real journey: a journey print, a ticket, a route chart, a story booklet, a railway document and a post card.

Our first journey is the race to Aberdeen in August 1895, told in three parts. Part One posts on 3 November. Join by 25 October to start with it. Link in bio.

We also make framed railway journeys in raised relief, 3D printed and finished by hand.

And every day we post one railway fact. Follow along.

#railwayhistory #trainhistory #snailmail #ukrailways #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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11 days ago

Is it straight? No: 1.3 degrees out, measured against the planks on the wall. We fixed it. In the edit.

(The frame is Zermatt to St. Moritz in raised relief. Link in bio.)

#crookedframe #homedecor #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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2 hours ago

How do you prove a bridge is safe in 1874?

This is the Eads Bridge, over the Mississippi at St. Louis: three steel arches, the middle one 520 feet. In June 1874, before it opened, a circus elephant was led across, because people believed elephants would never step onto anything unsafe. It walked over. Then came the real test: fourteen locomotives on the bridge at the same time. It held, and it still carries trains today.

No photograph of the elephant is known, so we drew it.

Follow for one railway fact a day, from Britain and beyond. Link in bio.

Images: The Eads Bridge, Compton & Co., about 1874, Library of Congress (public domain). Building the arches, September 1873, Missouri History Museum (public domain). Camille N. Dry, Pictorial St. Louis, 1875, Library of Congress (public domain).

#eadsbridge #railroadhistory #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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6 hours ago

Be honest. Is it straight? We measured it, and we'll tell you tomorrow.

#crookedframe #homedecor #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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20 hours ago

How do you lay a railway across a bog?

You float it. In the 1890s the West Highland line had to cross Rannoch Moor: mile after mile of wet peat that seemed to have no bottom. So the builders laid a mattress of brushwood and turf, with earth and ash, and put the track on top, like a raft. A guide to the line printed in 1894 said it "virtually floats over the moor". It opened in August 1894, and trains still cross the moor today.

The West Highland, Glasgow to Fort William and Mallaig, is one of our framed maps in raised relief: £149.99 plus delivery. 10% off memberships and framed maps until 25 October, while places last. Link in bio.

Images: Rannoch Moor and the mountains of Glencoe, the Gortan to Rannoch route map, and page 107, all from "Mountain, Moor and Loch", 1894 (public domain; route map scan from the British Library, no known copyright restrictions).

#westhighlandline #railwayhistory #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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a day ago

The hills are exaggerated. The figures aren't.

We stretch the height on every model so you can see the line climb. The figures on the card are another matter: 181 miles, the Oberalp Pass at 6,670 feet (the railway's summit, not the road pass, which is higher), 291 bridges and 91 tunnels, all from the railway's own published figures.

Six routes, or your own line, made to order. 10% off memberships and framed maps until 25 October. Link in bio.

#reliefmap #railwayart #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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2 days ago

Why did horses ride the train downhill?

On the Ffestiniog Railway, slate came down from the quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog to the harbour at Porthmadog, 13½ miles, downhill. The loaded wagons rolled down on their own, with two brakesmen holding the speed. Until steam came in 1863, the horses rode down too, in wagons called dandies, and at the bottom they pulled the empties back up. Down took under two hours. Back up, nearly six.

The line up the Conwy valley from Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog is on our vote for the next framed map. Link in bio.

Images: Tan-y-Bwlch, Photochrom, 1890 to 1905, Library of Congress (public domain). Porthmadog harbour, engraving by J. Newman & Co., 1870 (public domain). The Princess, photograph by John Thomas, about 1875, National Library of Wales (public domain). The dandy wagon is our own drawing.

#ffestiniograilway #railwayhistory #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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2 days ago

Why doesn't this 1839 railway timetable say October? The title page says 10th Mo. 25th, 1839.

George Bradshaw was a Manchester engraver and a Quaker, and Quakers didn't use the old names for the months. He gathered the times of Britain's new railways into one small book. From December 1841 it came out every month, and by 1898 an issue ran to 946 pages. Sherlock Holmes used one, and Phileas Fogg set off round the world with one. The last edition, No. 1521, came out in May 1961.

Bradshaw came out every month for almost 120 years. We've just started: six replica pieces of railway paper a month, and the first parcel posts in the first week of November. Link in bio.

Images: Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables, No. 3, 1839, title page and map (public domain). George Bradshaw by Richard Evans, 1841 (public domain). Bradshaw's Monthly, March 1843 (public domain).

#railwayhistory #bradshaw #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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3 days ago

How do you change drivers on a train that doesn't stop?

From 1 May 1928 the Flying Scotsman ran from King's Cross to Edinburgh without stopping: 392 miles, too far for one crew. So the engine got a new tender with a corridor along one side, five feet high and eighteen inches wide. Halfway, the fresh crew left the front coach, walked through the tender and took over on the footplate, at speed. At the time it was the longest scheduled non-stop run in the world.

In August 1895, East Coast night trains raced the West Coast to Aberdeen. That race is our first story, posted in the first week of November. Link in bio.

Images: The Flying Scotsman, 1928 press photograph (public domain). Preserved corridor tender at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, photo by BazzaDaRambler (CC BY 2.0).

#flyingscotsman #railwayhistory #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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4 days ago

Pick a line.

Zermatt to St. Moritz: 181 miles, 291 bridges, 91 tunnels.
The West Highland: 164 miles and Glenfinnan Viaduct's 21 arches.
The Settle and Carlisle: Ribblehead Viaduct's 24 arches.
The Riviera Line: 28¼ miles and 11 stations.
The Cambrian Coast: Barmouth Viaduct, 1867.
Vancouver to Banff: the Spiral Tunnels, 1909.

Or your own line. Each one is 3D printed and finished by hand in the West Midlands, made to order. £149.99, or £199.99 for your own. 10% off memberships and framed maps until 25 October. Link in bio.

#railwayart #ukrailways #therailwaydispatch by @therailwaydispatch

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5 days ago