Sally Johnson chose…. 

A train timetable, 1945 - 1946   

Every day I get on the train at 8:56am in Dudley and make my daily commute to Coventry arriving at 9.30am.  This timetable from the mid 1940s is almost the exact same route as the one I take.  I like the thought that people 70 years ago were making the same journey as I do now and that they also watched the fields fly by…although their journey took a little longer than mine.

Sally Johnson is a Marketing / Communications Assistant at the Herbert

What the curator says:

Train timetable 1945 to 1946

This is a timetable for trains from Wolverhampton through Coventry to London. At this time there were four railway companies in Britain. The line through Coventry to London was run by the London Midland and Scottish Railway. The journey from Coventry to London took about two and a half hours and a return ticket cost about £1.

Just after the Second World War a lot of people were moving around the country, including thousands returning home after serving in the armed forces. Most people did not own cars, so the railways were a very popular method of transport.

In 1948, the railway companies were nationalised to form the state owned British Railways. The railway system was privatised again in 1997 and now Coventry is served by three train companies.