Need help identifying a piece of paper in my collection. Anyone have a list of stations from long ago? Perhaps a pre-1900 system map with some decent detail?
This from the large Great Western (GWR) in Great Britain? From 1850: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great...ap_-_Route_of_Great_Western_Railway,_1850.jpg About 1930: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway#/media/File:GWR_map.jpg Or the Chicago Great Western? About 1897: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/CGWMapCirca1897.png
Yes. The GWR in Great Britain. That's why I have it in International Railways and said "original". Have a piece of paperwork, and cannot decipher the handwriting. There is mention of a place named "Preston", and also another which looks like it says "Hispeln". Trying to pinpoint where on the system they were located, and learn the correct spelling of the later name.
The only GWR place that it might be would be Preston Plat on the branchline to Kingswear and Brixham in Cornwall,. This came off the main line at Newton Abbot. The obvious GWR station in the same part of the GWR would be Helston (Much modelled by U.K modellers) but to be honest there are a lot of GWR stations beginning with H! Note that LN is not a very common ending for british place names at all. Kev
I'll try to get a scan uploaded later today. This dates from 1881, and the hand writing has me guessing at spellings.
A long time friend, (retired MILW man), gifted it to me. I have no idea where he came upon it, or how long he'd had it.
This morning I have been Googling, seeking any historical society for the GWR. Amazingly, nothing comes up. Then I tried to find any railroad specific historical group in the UK. Still coming up empty. I am quite puzzled. With so much preservation and restoration, there surely is a key word I am missing here. Help?
try http://www.gwsmainline.org/ this is the hub for all the GWR websites. There are hundreds of British railway societies and websites both researching the original companies and also preservation societies.. Of the Pre-group railways i.e the independent railways that were merged to form the 'Big Four' LMS, LNER, GWR and Southern I count 155 different railway companies in total. Not bad for a very small island! I bet each and every one has a society and a website dedicated to it Looking at the scan I don't think it is British. It looks like what you yanks describe as a 'Flimsy' and we don't tend to use the phrase despatcher over here. I'm wondering if it is from the Great Western railway in Canada which merged into the Canadian National? might be worth some digging Kev
Location identified. Going from Kev's lead, I was able to pinpoint this as Hespeler, Ontario, Canada. This is about a year prior to GWR being absorbed into the Grand Trunk Railway.
