This is a railway timetable I am looking forward to seeing it.
It is Bradshaw’s Manchester ABC Railway Guide for March 1917.
Now apart from the obvious nerdy desire to look up the times of trains from Chorlton-cum-Hardy into Central Station.
It is the clue to what was happening to our railways during the Great War.
The ever growing demands by the military and the munitions industry for rolling stock to transport men and weaponry had led to a decrease in passenger trains, a rise in the price of railway tickets and a dramatic fall in the number of services.
The companies increasingly made it clear to the public that the railway network was less a means to travel
around the country and more just for essential journeys.
It should be interesting to compare the 1917 guide with those Bradshaw issued before the war began.
So it will be less a guide to getting around Manchester in the March of 1917 and more another insight into the impact of the First World War.
As such it will be another of those little bits of information which will feed into my new book on Manchester and the Great War.
And no doubt it will find its way in to David Harrop’s exhibition of all things to do with the Great War in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.
David purchased the guide yesterday so it should be back in Manchester where it started out just under a century ago.
Now that I like.
Picture; Bradshaw’s Manchester ABC Railway Guide for March 1917, courtesy of David Harrop
*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War
Now apart from the obvious nerdy desire to look up the times of trains from Chorlton-cum-Hardy into Central Station.
It is the clue to what was happening to our railways during the Great War.
The ever growing demands by the military and the munitions industry for rolling stock to transport men and weaponry had led to a decrease in passenger trains, a rise in the price of railway tickets and a dramatic fall in the number of services.
The companies increasingly made it clear to the public that the railway network was less a means to travel
around the country and more just for essential journeys.
It should be interesting to compare the 1917 guide with those Bradshaw issued before the war began.
So it will be less a guide to getting around Manchester in the March of 1917 and more another insight into the impact of the First World War.
As such it will be another of those little bits of information which will feed into my new book on Manchester and the Great War.
And no doubt it will find its way in to David Harrop’s exhibition of all things to do with the Great War in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.
David purchased the guide yesterday so it should be back in Manchester where it started out just under a century ago.
Now that I like.
Picture; Bradshaw’s Manchester ABC Railway Guide for March 1917, courtesy of David Harrop
*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War
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