Journal 56 — Autumn 2014

Table of Contents

• Why is No. 56 different / By Ian Howard
• My Midland Station — 2 / By Robin Cullup, Derek Thorpe, David Kingston & Jim Perkins
• A Fatal Injury at Toton, 1871
• Danger & safety at Toton / By Ian Howard
• New Light on Hitchen / By Andrew Surry
• Snippets from the Railway Service Journal [1]
• Inside a Midland shed: notes on the centre spread / By David Hunt
• Miller's Dale Station / By Garth Ponsonby
• Melling and Wennington / By Ian Howard
• Query Corner
• Comments on Items in Previous Journals
• Snippets from the Railway Service Journal [2]

• 

  Front cover

  This undated photograph was taken from a position on the up side of the line about 100 yards from the northern entrance to the Melling tunnel. It depicts, in the distance, Melling station itself with a Midland passenger train standing at the up platform. The signalling on the Furness and Midland Joint Railway was provided by the Midland, and this photograph shows that at Melling to very good effect. A close-up of the station region from this print is one of the illustrations in a piece in this issue of the Journal on the section of the F&M between Wennington and Melling.

  [Courtesy of the Cumbrian Railways Association: Photograph Ref. No. W-M027]

• 

  Rear cover

  The Stratford on Avon and Midland Junction Railway came under full control of the Midland Division of the LMS after the grouping. This is a poster advertising an excursion over the route to Bristol and Weston-super-Mare. It is interesting to compare this with a Midland poster of 1869 that we reproduced on the back cover of Journal No. 52, Summer 1913. In that, a third class fare from Leicester to Matlock (journey about 50 miles) cost 8 shillings, whilst that in 1931 between Northampton and Bristol (more than 100 miles) cost 4/6. A rough estimate of the effects of inflation between 1869 and 1931 is that comparative prices doubled. So, an excursion passenger in 1931 (paying 4/6 for a 100 mile plus ticket) got about eight times the value for their money in 1931 compared with a person in 1869 (paying 8s for a 50 mile ticket).

  [Robin Cullup Collection]