The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) is a national society founded in

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

, England in 1928 to bring together those interested in

rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

and

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s. Since 1929 the Society has published a regular journal ''The Railway Observer'' which records the current railway scene. It also has regional branches which organise meetings and trips to places of interest and an archive & library. It has published definitive multi-volume locomotive histories of the Great Western, Southern and

London & North Eastern Railway London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

s, and has in progress similar works on the

London, Midland & Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

and

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways standard

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s. It also has published many other historical railway books since the mid-1950s. On 2 November 2016, the RCTS become a

Charitable Incorporated Organisation A Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) is a corporate form of business designed for (and only available to) charitable organisations in England and Wales, similar to (but with important differences from) a Scottish Charitable Incorporat ...

(CIO), registered number 1169995. Its new Archive and Library (located within the former station-master's house at Leatherhead station) was opened on 6 October 2018 by TV personality and antiques expert

Paul Atterbury Paul Rowley Atterbury, FRSA (born 8 April 1945) is a British antiques expert, known for his many appearances since 1979 on the BBC TV programme ''Antiques Roadshow.'' He specialises in the art, architecture, design and decorative arts of the 19 ...

History

In 1927 in

a group of rail enthusiasts led by Les Lapper and Aubrey Broad gathered in a garden shed and agreed to form the Cheltenham Spa Railway Society. It is thus one of the oldest

Railway enthusiasts societies in the United Kingdom A railfan or railway enthusiast and sometimes also called a trainspotter is a person interested, recreationally, in rail transport. Railfans of many ages can be found worldwide. To support the hobby in the United Kingdom, railway enthusiast societ ...

. Lapper and Broad quickly realised that this name lacked national appeal and between them persuaded their fellow members to change it to the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society (RCTS) with effect from January 1928.Foreword by Rodney Lissenden (then Chairman of the RCTS in ''Vintage Railtours, Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, A pictorial record 1954-69'' by Gavin Morrison, pub. 1993 Later that year this burgeoning Society moved its base to London and set up a Management Committee to oversee its affairs. A small team started producing a monthly magazine for members entitled ''The Railway News'' but, following complaints from a publishing company which had purchased an earlier title of that name (albeit, without ever using it), the RCTS changed it to ''The Railway Observer'' (''RO'') in 1929 and has retained that name ever since. It is the Society's proud boast that it has never failed to publish twelve editions of the ''RO'' every year since then, including throughout

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and several national printers' strikes in the 1950s and 1960s. On 11 September 1938 the world's first chartered special train exclusively for rail enthusiasts was operated by the RCTS, using the ex-GNR Stirling 'Single' No.1 on a round trip from

London Kings Cross King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the List of busiest railway stations in ...

to Peterborough North. War intervened to prevent further excursions of this nature but, on 25 May 1946, the

Longmoor Military Railway The Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) was a British military railway in Hampshire, built by the Royal Engineers from 1903 in order to train soldiers on railway construction and operations. The railway ceased operation on 31 October 1969. Route ...

ran a trip around its site for RCTS members then, on 30 September 1950, a tour of the newly formed

Southern Region of British Railways The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the sout ...

ran from

Holborn Viaduct Holborn Viaduct is a road bridge in London and the name of the street which crosses it (which forms part of the A40 route). It links Holborn, via Holborn Circus, with Newgate Street, in the City of London financial district, passing over ...

London Victoria Victoria station, also known as London Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster, managed by Network Rail. Named after the nearby Victoria Street (not the Q ...

using three different steam locomotives, including the Society's 'trademark' Schools class No. 30925 ''Cheltenham''. Providing rail tours for enthusiasts in the UK became a major activity and over 300 ran from 1954 until 1993 when the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...

and a reduction in spare rolling stock made this type of operation untenable for the society. In 1978 the RCTS celebrated its Golden Jubilee with a weekend of major celebrations based on Cheltenham. At its Annual General Meeting, held at the Queen's Hotel in Cheltenham, members voted overwhelmingly to admit lady members for the first time and thereby started a trend from which many other railway societies have greatly benefited. Later that year, the Society restarted the organisation of overseas tours for members (after a gap of five years), commencing with the ambitious but successful "Golden Jubilee Tour" of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Several such trips then ran each year, mostly to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

but also further afield such as two more visits to South Africa and one to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. From 1996, these have dropped to just one a year, usually to a different European destination on each occasion. As already mentioned above, the RCTS has become renowned for its many authoritative books, in particular its continuing series covering the development of steam locomotives in the UK. To allow it to become a recognised institution (allowing it to enter contracts for building leases), it became a

Charitable incorporated organisation A Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) is a corporate form of business designed for (and only available to) charitable organisations in England and Wales, similar to (but with important differences from) a Scottish Charitable Incorporat ...

(CIO) from November 2016. Initially it then functioned with both Trustees and a Management Committee, but both governing bodies were combined into one Board of Trustees from late 2020.

Regional branches

From the late 1940s, the RCTS has set up branches around the country and today has 29,RCTS Website - 2020 comprising Bristol & District, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Croydon & South London, East Midlands, Furness, Lakes & Lune, Hitchin, Humberside, Ipswich & District, Lancashire & North West, Merseyside, Cheshire & North Wales, Milton Keynes, Northampton, North East, Peterborough, Scottish, Sheffield, Solent, South East, South Essex, South Wales / De Cymru, Surrey, Thames Valley, Watford, West of England, West Midlands, West Riding and Windsor & Maidenhead.

References

External links

Railway Correspondence and Travel SocietyHistoric film from 19:00
Non-profit organisations based in the United Kingdom Rail transport in the United Kingdom Railway societies 1928 establishments in England {{UK-rail-transport-stub

History

Regional branches

See also

References

External links