The nineteen-part Locomotives of the LNER became the definitive history of the ‘Big Four’ railway company’s fleet and was published between 1963 and 1994. The research and publication were a remarkable and sustained voluntary endeavour by members of The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (the RCTS), an effort that commenced long before the first book appeared. As we approach the 2023 centenary of the London & North Eastern Railway’s formation, the RCTS is now reissuing the whole series. It has been re-imagined to take advantage of new opportunities that digital archiving offers.
The aim of this article is to celebrate the original work and the people who made it happen. The RCTS remains Britain’s leading railway society and it is now a registered charity with educational objectives at the forefront of its mission. It will go on to explain the various ways that Locomotives of the LNER can now be accessed – some free, some paid-for – and how the ‘wisdom of crowds’ can help far into the future with developing the content.
The series
A full set of books contains slightly over 4,250 pages, 3,323 illustrations and takes a good length of bookshelf. The overall style remained consistent; size 6in x 8in (153 x 204mm), green covers, images and text always separate, Gill Sans headings, Times Roman body. Four parts had colour frontispieces; the remainder were monochrome. The books have been out of print for many years, but secondhand copies
