Edwardian Railways in Postcards

More about the book

Edwardian Railways in Postcards dips into the history of Britain¿s railwaysthrough the phenomenal popularity of the railway postcard between 1902 and1915. Postcard collecting is a hobby as old as the picture postcard itself, andrailway postcards were amongst the medium¿s first collectables. Through thepostcard, almost every aspect of equipping and operating a railway was explored.In the Edwardian era, annual postcard sales are thought to have exceeded500,000,000, and the public who bought them sought an infinite variety ofsubject matter. Publishers vied with each other to produce more and morevisually interesting cards, and all the big railway companies produced their ownsets of `official¿ postcards to advertise the extent of their network, and promotethe modernity of their operations.Some of the 290 postcards included in this book are extremely rare, and offer aunique insight into the `golden age¿ of both the postcard and Britain¿s railways.