This article was written to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Group, which evolved from the response of six railway modellers to a letter in Railway Modeller from Nick Ellis in November 1989. They obtained the willing co-operation of Peter Erwood, of Arcturus Press, who kindly undertook and subsidized a fledgling Bulletin, and brought out Issue No. 1 in May/June 1990. It is clear that the first issues depended heavily on the energy and initiative of Pete Erwood, who by documenting the background and interests of several - but not all - of the early members, airing their views about the aims of the Group, establishing an Information Exchange and then encouraging the contribution of articles and notes by members about their own specialities, set the course of the Bulletin as a serious periodical.

By January 1991 there were 18 members, and in February a Committee met and drew up a formal Constitution. In the first few years the content of the Information Exchange with its questions and relatively brief answers, together with a large number of short Notes on a wide variety of subjects, made up most of the Bulletin. Few members were motivated to write full-length articles. No substantial article appeared until the first issue of 1991, when founder-member and enduring linchpin of the Group, Mike Christensen, provided the first of a series on `Wartime Emergency Connections', his subject being the works at Sandy. Soon after, John McCrickard contributed an article on the Northallerton Avoiding Line. These authors set a standard for authoritative, illustrated articles for the Bulletin that has been maintained and developed since then. Their subject was subsequently extended to Wartime Depots and Special Stations. Christensen has also described, inter alia, the Preparation of Bridges for Demolition in the event of Invasion, Protection of Railways near Airfields, Ferrying Locomotives across the Sea, and the Financial Arrangements of the Railways with the Government, and has authored the only book published (by Arcturus) under the Group's banner, The Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Light Railway under Military Control, 1941-1960.

This first 1991 issue (Bulletin No. 6, now referred to as ‘1/6’ because the first twelve issues up to March/April 1992 were called ‘Series One’) was also the first with ‘photographs’. However, the reproduction was poor because it could only be done by photocopying. Unfortunately, owing to lack of funds, this is still the case and any subsequent improvement has only been through the employment of better photocopying equipment. Christensen, McCrickard, and later other contributors, also provided drawings of professional standard, the reproduction of which has naturally not presented the same problem.

The Bulletin began to benefit from the wide knowledge and thorough researches, in his capacity as Deputy Chief Librarian at the MoD Library, of member John Woods. His first contribution was a list of official War Office documents in the PRO relating to railways. Later, some of the products of his researches have appeared: for example, extensive lists of the locations and movements of WD locomotives (including those hired), comprehensive statistics on WD Railways, and an annotated list of ROF’s. However, as with many member's researches, space limitations preclude the publication of Woods' extensive extracts related to railways from the War Office ‘Red Books’, nor of his monumental Directory of Military Installations and MoS Factories in Britain, but copies are available to Group members at cost. Other members have contributed useful descriptions of these installations: Major S.A. Simmons produced a description, with a good map, of the great Ammunition Depot at Bramley; H.J. (‘Tiny’) Williams, starting with Huntspill in 1998, has been providing a series of thorough studies on Military Depots and ROF’s, several of which are still to appear in the Bulletin.

Also in 1993, the Chairman, Rob Bayliff, joined in by presenting his list of SR-derived ‘Mobile Workshop Trains, Ramp Wagons and Brake Vans’. The Chairman, however, had wider horizons: by contributing a list of ‘Railway Lines of Communication in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany’, he began the extension of the scope of the Bulletin to Overseas. Next, John Allison sent in a comprehensive list he had compiled of the RAF Bomber Command attacks on railway targets in Germany, Italy and Occupied Europe, which - regrettably - could only be cut down to a summary of a size limited by that of the Bulletin.

Under the new editorship in 1995, there was no particular change in the content of the Bulletin. Rather, there was an evolution, consequent upon the receipt, from a steadily increasing group membership, of articles that covered a widening range of topics. Bayliff presented a translation from Dutch of a masterly account by Hans Wervers of the ‘Locomotives and Rolling Stock of the US Army Transportation Corps’. With a number of photographs and scale drawings, this article ran to nearly 15 pages and set a new standard of length as well as depth. In another 1995 issue, in-depth documentation of a different kind, that of wartime special trains, was initiated by Richard Taylor with a complete list of Evacuation trains on the SE Section of the SR from London in September 1939. This was followed by DWW's listing of all the troop trains to Scottish ports for Operation Avonmouth, the Norwegian Expedition in April 1940. (After those early days of the war, the blanket of secrecy became so thick that such fascinating detail was very rarely documented and so cannot be found in the PRO). Similarly, in Bulletin 8/6, Alan Blackburn had a comprehensive list of ‘SR Works Orders for Military Equipment’.

Later in 1995, the extension of the Bulletin into the railways of distant and lesser-known countries was underlined by the first of several notable contributions - here on Slovak Railways - from John Bushby. Subsequently this leading expert on Eastern Europe has provided reviews of foreign books of which few members would otherwise have ever been aware, and major articles on ‘German Anti-Aircraft Guns’, on ‘Hitler's Projected Broad-Gauge Railway’ and his ‘Wolfschanze’, on ‘War Locomotives Preserved in Eastern Europe’, and on the Polish Railways. Bulletin 6/4 (1996) contained an article, ‘Austrian Railways in World War Two’, the first of Walter Rothschild's well-grounded and discerning articles and book reviews that have taken members deeply into the railways of Central and Eastern Europe. Several of Rothschild's shorter pieces have appeared subsequently, and in 1999-2000 some of his longer features have embraced material translated from German about Recollections from North Africa, the alleged Train-Busting in Germany by Allied Airmen, and ‘Der Reichsbahn hinter den Ostfront’.

From the outset, attempts have been made from time to time to focus on particular topics. Favoured topics have been: USATC 0-6-0T’s, German ‘Krieglok’s’, WD 2-10-0’s, and transportation of AFV’s. Thus in Issue 6/1, again 15 pages were devoted to one article - an authoritative account by Christensen in detail and accompanied by striking photographs, of the ‘Use of Special Warflat Trains’, and in Issue 7/6 Woods added a lot more information. Unfamiliar facts about the post-war fate of USA 0-6-0T’s were described by David Notarius, later by others and accompanied by rare photographs. The subject of ‘Kriegslok’s’ was dealt with first in an article by the Group Secretary, Greg Martin, and followed up by Tony Lambert. Lambert is a member whose expert knowledge of matters European derives from personal experience as a RE(Tn) officer during the war. He has contributed many notes on a variety of subjects, and his longer pieces have included the Melbourne Military Railway and WD 0-6-0T’s surviving from World War One. The curious topic of Aircraft Crashes on Railway Lines - a surprisingly frequent occurrence - has been documented at some length by Brooksbank, by DWW and by Cyril Rushworth. Another topic has been Ambulance Trains, with interesting papers by Alan Turley, Richard Strange and others. A recurring topic in Information Exchange has been Railway Guns, and this subject has been tackled in depth by Erwood, Bushby, and Iain Pardoe. Another is Military Rolling Stock, about which noteworthy illustrated descriptions and inventories have been made by George Moon, Brian Hardy, and Rob Bayliff. Armoured trains are a popular subject, and for Bulletin 8/1 permission was fortunately obtained to reproduce from SA Rail & Harbours an illustrated account of a unique armoured locomotive employed in South Africa. Naturally, the Longmoor Military Railway has often cropped up, and Williams and Simmons have written at some length on the topic.

Topics introduced as Queries in the Information Exchange have spawned new areas of research, resulting in noteworthy copy for the Bulletin. A case in point arose from a Query placed by member Robin Wilson, who sent for interpretation the copy of a sample sheet from a document found at the Museum of Army Transport (MAT), Beverley. It showed coded secret Schedules of Military Special Trains, and was promptly explained (in part) by Gerald Jacobs, another member with first-hand experience of railway work going back to the war period. He himself not only possesses a large book of these Schedules, but also four priceless hand-written record books dating from May 1944 until well after the war. These were kept by assistants attending the Conferences held two or more times a day at the War Office, where senior railway officials met with officers of the British and US Armies to arrange the despatch of Supply trains, principally for Operation Overlord, running under the special Schedules from depots to ports for shipment to NW Europe. A sample page of these records, together with a listing of the secret codes used for Depots and Ports was reproduced in Bulletin 7/6. The books themselves have now been photocopied for ‘Posterity’ - but a volunteer is still needed to write up the whole story.

In the longer Bulletins of the last five years, many facsimiles of interesting documents from the archives of the PRO, NRM and other sources have been featured, notably those trawled by DWW from the British Railways Board Records repository in Bayswater, and by Brooksbank from the PRO. If possible, trouble has been taken to maintain an appearance of authenticity by retyping them in their original font and format. The first important one was given by the Librarian at the NRM, who has greatly helped the Group by having the Bulletin exhibited in the Museum Library, as has his counterparts at the IWM and the MAT. This facsimile, with scale drawings, was on the subject of ‘Special Wagons for Very Large Naval Guns’. Subsequent facsimiles concerned such as the following: Measures planned (or carried out) under the Threat of Invasion in 1940, Instructions on the Handling of Ammunition Trains, Preparations for Overlord, Reports on the Air Raid on York in April 1942, the Fate of Railway Staff in Paris and in the Channel Islands at the Fall of France, a list of those curious Wagon Names used by the GWR, and so on...

In the Modelling Section of the Bulletin, apart from the periodic updates of information about military railway models, particular features have been descriptions and illustrations by founding member Tony Cane, including those of his own brilliant models, by Philip Parker, by Werner Köhler, Mike Walshaw, Mike Webber, and Lieut.-Col. Paul Malmassari, and most recently a very detailed piece by George Moon.