Great Western Railway Air Services

The Great Western Railway, also known as the GWR, and then also known as 'God's Wonderful Railway', the 'Great Way Round' or 'Goes When Ready' was one of the 'Big Four' railway companies in the UK between 1923 and 1948, when they were nationalised to form British Railways. The GWR never missed a trick, and had superb publicity to take advantage of the achievements and new developments the railway was doing. One area where the GWR lead the way was in developing its own Airline.



The Great Western Railway Air Services commenced operations in April 1933, operating between Birmingham and Plymouth, with Cardiff, Teignmouth and Torquay en-route. The service consisted of one aircraft, a three-engined Westland Wessex, owned by Imperial Airways, and painted in brown and cream, the traditional colour for GWR passenger carrying vehicles, such as the railway carriages, streamlined diesel railcars, and motor busses.



Timetable dated May 22 1933, from the collections of Björn Larsson http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/gwr.htm

Hobbs and Sons Fish & Chip Shop

The Black Country Living Museum, located in Dudley in the West Midlands (near Birmingham) has many relocated buildings from British history, especially from the Victorian-1930s era. The 1930s street is the newest development, and one of the first buildings to be opened was the Fish & Chip Shop, no doubt to relieve the strain on the much smaller 1920s Fish & Chip Shop which is always overwhelmed by demand!



The Fish & Chips are cooked in beef dripping and taste superb, and you can get scraps as well - for more information visit http://www.bclm.co.uk

Austin 10

Austin 10 fitted with a blackout mask to the headlamp, as fitted in the Second World War to reduce the glare from the headlamp to avoid being seen from the air (which also made driving at night a lot more dangerous)



Seen at the Chiltern Open Air Museum WW2 Weekend, March 28 2010

Great Western Railway Poster, 1935

If only rail fares were this cheap today!

British Empire Trophy Race, 1937

Featuring the excitement of corners! And bends!

British Airways advert, 1937

From a 1937 issue of Flight magazine

Featuring a Lockheed 10a Electra

Full size - http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk256/RobLangham/baad.jpg

Thompson Aircraft Refueller Part Two

I've already mentioned the Thompson aircraft refueller, a common sight at airfields and airports in the 1930's, here http://art-deco-uk.blogspot.com/2009/08/thompson-aircraft-refueller.html , and came across this great advert marketing them in the July 1 1937 issue of Flight magazine, still going today and with an online archive of past issues, accessible here http://www.flightglobal.com/

Now the weather is finally improving i'm hoping to make it down to Brooklands before too long, would be nice to get a better photograph of the Thompson refueller, and hopefully the paintwork will be in better condition too