Great Central Railway : to and from the Continent via Grimsby : timetable folder, 1 October 1912 map section 2
Sections from the October 1912 timetable and map folder issued by the Great Central Railway advertising the connections to Contiental ports through their ferry services to and fromt he East Coast port of Grimsby. The GCR had 'inherited' many of these services from the predecessor company the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway who had effectively operated various ferry services since 1864. In post-WW1 years with the Grouping of the railways these would pass to the London & North Eastern Railway.
The folder takes the form of a vast and densely detailed map of the railways of Great Britain and northern Europe showing the GCR's ferry routes between Grimsby and Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Esbjerg, Gothenburg, Christiania (Copenhagen) and Malmo. It also shows details of through bookings across Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark using these services along with connecting train services and fares. The inter-connectivity advertised between seemingly small towns and cities belies the commercial links of the day as well as of the highly developed nature of railway and ferry infrastructure in the days before air travel. The mapping was provided, like many others, by the Edinburgh cartographers of John Bartholomew. This section shows the connections into the bulk of Central Germany via Hamburg.
The GCR were also pushing the new fleet of vessels they were putting into service, named after northern towns, and delivery of which would be completed in 1914. This was not exactly as it turned out to be an auspicious date for continental travel and indeed one vessel, the Blackburn, had been lost on its maiden voyage. The others including the Dewsbury, Accrington, Bury and Stockport, along with earlier vessles including the SS Immingham and SS Marylebone, survived into the 1940s and '50s.
Great Central Railway : to and from the Continent via Grimsby : timetable folder, 1 October 1912 map section 2
Sections from the October 1912 timetable and map folder issued by the Great Central Railway advertising the connections to Contiental ports through their ferry services to and fromt he East Coast port of Grimsby. The GCR had 'inherited' many of these services from the predecessor company the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway who had effectively operated various ferry services since 1864. In post-WW1 years with the Grouping of the railways these would pass to the London & North Eastern Railway.
The folder takes the form of a vast and densely detailed map of the railways of Great Britain and northern Europe showing the GCR's ferry routes between Grimsby and Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Esbjerg, Gothenburg, Christiania (Copenhagen) and Malmo. It also shows details of through bookings across Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark using these services along with connecting train services and fares. The inter-connectivity advertised between seemingly small towns and cities belies the commercial links of the day as well as of the highly developed nature of railway and ferry infrastructure in the days before air travel. The mapping was provided, like many others, by the Edinburgh cartographers of John Bartholomew. This section shows the connections into the bulk of Central Germany via Hamburg.
The GCR were also pushing the new fleet of vessels they were putting into service, named after northern towns, and delivery of which would be completed in 1914. This was not exactly as it turned out to be an auspicious date for continental travel and indeed one vessel, the Blackburn, had been lost on its maiden voyage. The others including the Dewsbury, Accrington, Bury and Stockport, along with earlier vessles including the SS Immingham and SS Marylebone, survived into the 1940s and '50s.