July 1897: Issue 1
WE called at Paddington to interview Mr Joseph Wilkinson, general manager of the Great Western Railway. After explaining the purpose of our visit, Mr Wilkinson wished to know why we had chosen the GWR for the first of the series of Railway Magazine interviews. We explained that, as the GWR was widely known as the Royal Railway, we could not do better in this Diamond Jubilee Year [of Queen Victoria] than commence at Paddington.
Upon hearing this explanation, Mr Wilkinson’s face lit up with a genial smile, and he replied: “Well, it so happens that I now have a gentleman waiting to see me for the purpose of arranging the running of the Royal Train, by which the Queen will travel from Windsor to Paddington on June 21st.”
“As you know,” Mr Wilkinson continued, “we consider our new Royal Train quite the event of the railway world so far as the Queen’s Jubilee is concerned.”
September 1901: P&P is born
IT was this month’s issue that saw our first ever Practice & Performance feature, written by Charles Rous-Martin. The column has been an ever-present in The RM, and is acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the world’s longest running railway series. Between August 1909 and December 1958, Cecil J Allen compiled 535 articles for the series.
October 1905: A ton up
THE 100th issue of The RM was published, and contained praise from many leading locomotive engineers of the day – William Pickersgill, John G Robinson, George Churchward and Wilson Worsdell.
August 1914: First World War begins
BRITAIN entered the war on August 4, 1914 and all the principal railways of the United Kingdom were taken over by the Government for the duration under the Regulation
