The Three Railway Engines 1946-2011

The Railway Series by the Rev. W. Awdry was first published in the May of 1945 with The Three Railway Engines and ran until his last book, Tramway Engines, which was published in 1972. His son Christopher Awdry took over writing the stories for the 27^th book, Really Useful Engines, in 1983 and continued on his fathers work until 2011 when Thomas and his Friends was released.

The Railway Series went through a lot of changes during its run, from changing illustrators, to how some of the stories had their wording changed.

I will be showing you as many of these changes as I can. Focusing more on their dust jackets and covers and showing you how they have changed over the years. I will also be showing you some interesting facts about some of the books many of you might not have known.

As I am focusing on how the books themselves have changed over the years, if you would like to see reviews on the stories within the books then check out thesifblog and for reviews on the stories vs episodes please check out Jeffrey Kitsch on youtube.

As I do not own a first edition copy of the Three Railway Engines book I am unable to do a full review on this edition of the book. Instead I will be starting my review on the earliest edition I own in my collection.

Unfortunately the earliest editions of the Railway Series books didn’t have publication dates so it is hard to accurately date them. However the final page of the book includes an advertisement for the companion to this book ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, this suggests to me that my copy is a 3rd or 4th edition from 1946.

 This is the earliest version of the dust jacket I own, as this edition contains the original Middleton illustrations and this image is the first one ever seen on the cover of a Railway Series book. Middleton’s illustrations were used for 4 years over 8 editions of the book.

This design featured one of the illustrations as the main focus of the dust jacket with a bright yellow boarder so allow it to stand out on bookshelves and stands. The unique typeface used for the title of the book was arranged to follow the flow and a wavy white line that wraps around from the spine to the front. The front also the line ‘by The Rev. W. Awdry’ in a simple cursive typeface.

The spine uses the same unique typeface as the front does except in a straight line reading from bottom to top, with Edmund Ward written on the bottom edge.

Just on the inside of the dust jacket as you first open the book there is a small little blurb about the book, ‘The three Engines all lived in the same shed and worked on the same railway. The Author has told of their adventures in four amusing short stories showing how they quarrelled and eventually become good friends again.’ 

 

And with ‘A Lyn Book’ logo on the very back cover this completes the dust jacket as the remaining parts of the are blank.Under the dust jacket the fabric covered book is in a pale light blue with a green thin boarder and a simple silhouette of three engines under the title of the book.

For a look at all the Middleton illustrations used in this book please take a look at ThomasTankCollectables videos on YouTube as he shows them all and compares these to the ones we all know.

Jumping forward a few years to April 1950 and the release of the Ninth edition and January 1951 with the Tenth Edition of the book. Both of these books are the same through out. Both of these books in my collection do not have dust jackets and so I can only show their covers on the main book.

They both still feature the original silhouettes of the engines and title, done with gold gilding but without the line border and feature a dark green fabric as a base.

These book now contain the illustrations by C. Reginald Dalby and were mostly produced using Middleton’s as reference and so some of the mistakes carried over from one to the other.

(The missing coupling from the coaches for example.)

The art style was a vast major improvement over the originals and Dalby would continue to provide the illustrations for more of the a few more years.

Up next are my twelfth and thirteenth editions from October 1952 and August 1954.

These two both have dust jackets with them. They use the original style covers with the Dalby illustrations now and use the updated typeface on the spine which would be widely used more on other books as the main typeface.

Inside there are a few new additions to the dust jackets. The blurb in the front has been updated to read ‘The Three Railway Engines is the first book in the well-known “Railway Series” by the REV. W. AWDRY. In it he tells of Edward, Gordon and Henry who lived in the same shed and who were always boasting and quarrelling amongst themselves until, after a series of adventures, they found that it is best to be good friends and to help each other.’ The books also now cost 4/6 rather than the original 4/-

There are also now adverts for other books by the publisher on the back of the book and on the inside rear on the dust jacket.

These two also feature the newer updated silhouettes for Gordon, Edward and Henry with the only way to tell them apart is from Gordon’s rectangular buffers compared to Edward and Henry’s round ones. The twelfth edition still used the dark green fabric while the thirteenth edition uses more blueish green coloured fabric.

From here we move forward 18 years to 1972 and my earliest copy of the Paperback edition and it is here we get a look at the cover style we all know well.

The yellow boarder and Dalby illustration remain but now the title, with the updated serif typeface, has now moved from under the image to above it with Railway Series, No.1 just above that it is now that we are shown that this is the first book in the series. And a new serif typeface is used for the authors name ‘The Rev. W. Awdry’.

This paperback edition only cost 18p net in the UK only. By the time this book released all of the Reverend’s books had been released and so the back of the book now has the blurb written on the back and a full list of all 26 book and its ISBN number.

Inside the rear of this book not only does it list all the books but also lists which books are also published in Welsh and let the readers know about the Map of Sodor which cost 50p and the Surprise Packet which cost 90p.

We now move back to a Hardback edition of the book from 1981.

This one is special to me as this copy is signed by the Rev. W. Awdry himself.

Internally the book is the exact same as previous edition with Dalby’s artwork and externally very little changed.

The same goes for my 1986 paperback and 1991 hardback editions with only some small changes back to the back of the book.

During 1990 as miniature version of the book was printed along with 7 other Railway Series books.

 The much smaller size still had all the text and images the normal ones had but just smaller.

Not only were these books released as two different four book sets, the first 4 were also released in a special pack containing an Etrl Thomas.

(With thanks to ThomasTankCollectables for providing this image)

By the 90’s Kaye and Ward Ltd no longer published the books and now William Heinemann Ltd took over.

My next edition in my collection is from 1995 and it was around this time, ‘93/’94, that the inside artwork was added to the first and last set of pages.  The books only ever used the newer artwork they were never given the original artwork when it was used in other books. Over this time the books have gone up in price from £1.25 in 1986 to £2.95 in 1991 and then up again to £3.99 by 1995.

The books kept the cover design of the Yellow going until 1998 when they were updated to a brand new design. I have 2 of these books, one is an Uncorrected proof-bound Dummy copy and the official release copy. Both of these books are priced at £4.99.

Externally the new design was vastly different to what was used previously. No longer a yellow boarder but now it uses a red background with a deep blue section along the bottom and now uses a different image from the book. On the inside there was a massive change to the page layout and the images. Now the images had been altered to be cropped and small sections taken from the illustrations and used to highlight parts of the stories. They still used Dalby’s artwork but they looked different than previous editions.

 (The top book is the official release version and the lower is the dummy copy)

Between the Dummy copy and the Official release not much changed, on the spine the typography for the authors name was made smaller and on the inside the text was altered to fill the pages more rather than just being in the middle of the page.

Up next is my 2002 edition copy which still cost £4.99 but went back to the 1995 style cover. 

The illustrations were restored for this edition and now the books were published under Egmont Books Ltd.

Now we reach 2015 where I again have 2 copies of this edition of the books and it the most current version to be released. I have one copy from the 70^th Anniversary box set and the single release of the book. These books cost £7.99 each. This was the biggest increase of price in one go since the books first release.

Once again all the Dalby illustrations were restored and the covers got an update to bring them into modern times. The bright yellow colour was removed and replaced with a more mustard shard of yellow and all the typeface was updated from a serif font to a San serif font more similar to Gill Sans. The image on the front now was a thicker white boarder with rounded corners.  

The single release version of the book also had a gloss finish on the title and cover artwork plus the spine.

This marks the end of the 16 copies of The Three Railway Engines that I own in my collection. I am hoping you have been able to learn something new about this book. Next time I will be going over the changes of my 19 copies of Thomas the Tank Engine.

I will be adding to this post as and when I obtain any more editions of this book.