View source for ABC Rail Guide

{{short description|UK railway timetable guide}}
{{redirect|ABC Guide|the short-lived Australian on-air TV guide|ABC Television (Australian TV network)#2000 to present}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{EngvarB|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox magazine
| title           = ABC Rail Guide
| logo            =
| logo_size       = <!-- default is 180px -->
| image_file      = The ABC Alphabetical Railway Guide No. 847, April 1924.jpg
| image_size      = <!-- default is 180px -->
| image_alt       =
| image_caption   = ''The ABC Alphabetical Railway Guide'', No. 847, April 1924
| editor          = <!-- up to |editor5= -->
| editor_title    = <!-- up to |editor_title5= -->
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| category        = Travel
| frequency       = Monthly
| format          =
| circulation     =
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| paid_circulation   =
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| total_circulation  =
| founder         =
| founded         = 1853
| firstdate       = <!-- {{Start date and age|df=yes|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| finaldate       = 2007
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| company         =
| country         = United Kingdom
| based           =
| language        = English
| website         = <!-- {{URL|example.com}} -->
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[[File:Punch mock railway timetable 19 Aug 1865, p. 64.jpg|thumb|Mock railway timetable from ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' magazine, 1865, satirising the complexity of ABC's competitor Bradshaw.<ref name=esb/>]]
[[File:Agatha Christie The A.B.C. Murders first edition cover 1936.jpg|thumb|Cover of first edition of Agatha Christie's ''The A.B.C. Murders'', 1936.]]
The '''''ABC Rail Guide''''', first published in 1853 as '''''The ABC or Alphabetical Railway Guide''''', was a monthly [[railway timetable]] guide to the United Kingdom that was organised on an alphabetical basis that made it easier to use than its competitor ''Bradshaw's Guide'' which had a reputation for difficulty.
It was one of many railway timetable guides published during the expansion of the British railway network in the Victorian era, had many imitators, and was seen as symbolic of the more regulated nature of life in the industrial era.
In 1936, the guides were a plot element in Agatha Christie's detective novel ''[[The A.B.C. Murders]]''. After a number of changes of publisher in the later twentieth century during which it was renamed the ''OAG Rail Guide'', it ceased publication in 2007.
==Victorian origins==
The guide was first published in 1853<ref>''ABC Rail Guide'', No. 1566 (May 1984), p. 1.</ref> by William Tweedie of 337 [[Strand, London|Strand]], London, under the title ''The ABC or Alphabetical Railway Guide''. It had the subtitle: ''How and when you can go from London to the different stations in Great Britain, and return; together with the fares, distances, population, and the cab fares from the different stations. Also a new map of the railways, telegraphs &c., of Great Britain''.<ref name=britlib>[http://explore.bl.uk/BLVU1:LSCOP-ALL:BLL01002838393 The ABC, or, Alphabetical railway guide.] British Library. Retrieved 13 March 2019.</ref>
The guide's slogan was "Easy as ABC",<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1jIGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9 |title=The ABC or Alphabetical Railway Guide &c. |year=1858 |volume=63 |publication-date=December 1858}}</ref> reflecting its alphabetical listings that made it much easier to use than its competitor ''[[Bradshaw's Guide]]'' which was notoriously difficult to understand, requiring "the patience of a chess player and the ingenuity of a crossword puzzle addict".<ref name=ILN>"Travellers' ABC", ''Illustrated London News'', 11 December 1989, p. 22.</ref> Oscar Wilde is said to have observed that he would "sooner lose a train by the ABC than catch it by Bradshaw".<ref>Redman, Alvin. (1952) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.13145/page/n211 ''The Epigrams Of Oscar Wilde'']. London: Alvin Redman. p. XLIV.</ref>
The disadvantage of the ABC guide, however, was that it only allowed the reader to see the timetable information when travelling from one principal station to another while Bradshaw's tabular form allowed every passenger service and every station, even the minor ones, to be shown.<ref name=esb/>
It was one of many similar railway timetable guides<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.57.2.251 "The Railway Guide's Experiments in Cartography: Narrative, Information, Advertising"], Tina Young Choi, ''[[Victorian Studies]]'', Vol. 57, No. 2 (Winter 2015), pp. 251–284.</ref> published during the Victorian era during the expansion of the railway network in what has been called "the age of timetables", the production of which was seen at the time as symbolic of the more regulated nature of life in the industrial era, and "a necessity in these days of constant locomotion" as a clergyman put it in 1885.<ref name=esb>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/40930543 "Nineteenth-Century Timetables and the History of Reading"], Mike Esbester, ''[[Book History (journal)|Book History]]'', Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 156–185.</ref> The scope of the guide was national but contemporary commentators noted that every large city seemed to have its own version of the ABC guide.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25107047 "The City of the Royal Pavilion"], W. D. Howells, ''[[The North American Review]]'', Vol. 194, No. 671 (Oct., 1911), pp. 602–611 (p. 602).</ref>
==Agatha Christie novel==
In [[Agatha Christie]]'s detective novel of 1936 featuring [[Hercule Poirot]], ''The A.B.C. Murders'', an "ABC railway guide" is left at the scene of each of a series of murders of which Alexander Bonaparte Cust is suspected.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bWapDAAAQBAJ&dq=ABC+Rail+Guide+agatha+christie&pg=PT7|title=A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "The A.B.C. Murders"|date=2016|publisher=Gale Cengage Learning|isbn=9780787686871|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Zem">{{cite book|author=Zemboy, James.|title=The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader's Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hqfiCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA106|edition=Reprint|year=2016|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson|isbn=978-1-4766-6595-5|page=106}}</ref> A copy of the guide was pictured on the cover.<ref>[https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780007234431/the-abc-murders/ The ABC Murders.] Harper Collins. Retrieved 17 March 2019.</ref> Christie's grandson, [[Mathew Prichard]], claimed in an interview that the story was inspired by a copy of the ABC guide that she always kept by her telephone.<ref>[https://fivebooks.com/best-books/agatha-christie-mathew-prichard/ The Best Agatha Christie Books.] Interview with Mathew Prichard by Sophie Roell, ''Five Books''. Retrieved 16 March 2019.</ref> In the novel, after the first murder, a copy of a railway guide is found, open at Andover. Poirot asks the police inspector, "A railway guide, you say. A Bradshaw – ''or an A B C''?" to which the inspector replies "By the Lord, it ''was'' an A B C".<ref name=chris/> Poirot subsequently attributes his interest in the case to the involvement of the railway guide, "so familiarly known by its abbreviation of A B C".<ref name=chris>Christie, Agatha. (2011) ''The A.B.C. Murders''. London: Harper. pp. 22–23. {{ISBN|978-0062073587}}</ref>
In the 1960s, the guide again featured on the cover of Christie's ''The A.B.C. Murders'' after the August 1935 edition was chosen as the background image and frame for a scene from the novel in one of [[Tom Adams (illustrator)|Tom Adams]]' illustrations for the [[Fontana Books|Fontana]] paperback edition.<ref>[[Julian Symons|Symons, Julian]]. (1981) ''Tom Adams' Agatha Christie Cover Story''. Limpsfield: Paper Tiger. p. 107. {{ISBN|0905895622}}</ref>
==Twentieth century==
A section on air travel was introduced and the guide briefly had the title ''ABC or Alphabetical Railway and Air Guide'' (March 1945 to May 1946) before that section was spun-off and published separately as ''The ABC or Alphabetical Air Guide.''<ref name=britlib/>
In 1986, the July 1923 edition was reprinted by [[David & Charles]] with an introduction by [[David St John Thomas]] in which he observed that fans of Bradshaw's were inclined to regard users of the ABC as lazy as it gave only the times to and from London and ignored cross-country trains. He felt, however, that it did greatly stimulate the mind of the railway historian, the July 1923 edition being particularly interesting as it was one of the first published after the January 1923 railway company consolidation into the "big four" companies.<ref>"Introduction" by David St John Thomas in ''The ABC Alphabetical Railway Guide July 1923''. (1986) London: David & Charles. {{ISBN|0715389092}}</ref>
In the twentieth century, its publishers were Thomas Skinner & Co., who also published the ''[[Stock Exchange Official Year-Book]]'' and the ''[[Directory of Directors]]'',<ref>"Obituary: Sir Thomas Hewitt Skinner", ''The Times'', 11 October 1968, p. 12.</ref> ABC Travel Guides of Dunstable, [[Reed Elsevier|Reed]], and [[OAG (company)|OAG]] (founded as the Official Aviation Guide).<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/12/business/company-news-maxwell-agrees-to-sell-its-airline-guides-unit.html Maxwell Agrees to Sell Its Airline Guides Unit.] Geraldine Fabrikant, ''[[New York Times]]'', 12 May 1993. Retrieved 12 March 2019.</ref> The guide was retitled the ''OAG Rail Guide'' in 1996.<ref>[http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=BLVU1&search_scope=LSCOP-ALL&docId=BLL01007918944&fn=permalink OAG Rail Guide.] British Library. Retrieved 12 March 2019.</ref> It ceased to be published in 2007.<ref>[http://primocat.bl.uk/F/7HDKI6B73G9YDN5R3EJAXC2ASARE8QASRJ68CKQ7X7MHTPFMH1-02384?func=item-global&doc_library=BLL01&doc_number=007918944&year=2007&volume=&sub_library= OAG Rail Guide.] British Library. Retrieved 14 March 2019.</ref>
==See also==
* [[History of rail transport in Great Britain]]
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
* Esbester, Mike, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40301432 "Designing Time: The Design and Use of Nineteenth-Century Transport Timetables"], ''[[Journal of Design History]]'', Vol. 22, No. 2 (June 2009), pp.&nbsp;91–113.
* ''[https://archive.org/details/mrpunchsrailwayb00maypiala/page/n5 Mr. Punch's Railway Book]''. Educational Book Co., London, c.1900.
[[Category:1853 establishments in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Defunct periodicals published in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:2007 disestablishments in the United Kingdom]]