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104:. 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. 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
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From the late 1940s, the RCTS has set up branches around the country and today has 29, comprising
Bristol & District, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Croydon & South London, East Midlands, Furness, Lakes & Lune, Hitchin, Humberside, Ipswich & District, Lancashire & North West, Merseyside,
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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
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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.
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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
193:(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.
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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.
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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
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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
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which records the current railway scene. It also has regional branches which organise meetings and trips to places of interest and an archive & library.
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116:) 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
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On 11 September 1938 the world's first chartered special train exclusively for rail enthusiasts was operated by the RCTS, using the ex-GNR
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To allow it to become a recognised institution (allowing it to enter contracts for building leases), it became a
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ran a trip around its site for RCTS members then, on 30 September 1950, a tour of the newly formed
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and a reduction in spare rolling stock made this type of operation untenable for the society.
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Vintage
Railtours, Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, A pictorial record 1954–69
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using three different steam locomotives, including the
Society's 'trademark'
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but also further afield such as two more visits to South Africa and one to
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Specifically, for the
Society's Archive and Library at Leatherhead station
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It has published definitive multi-volume locomotive histories of the
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and several national printers' strikes in the 1950s and 1960s.
322:'The Railway Observer' Volume 90, Number 1102, December 2020
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Foreword by Rodney
Lissenden (then Chairman of the RCTS in
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Rail transport organizations based in the United
Kingdom
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This United Kingdom rail transport related article is a
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Since 1929 the Society has published a regular journal
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Non-profit organisations based in the United Kingdom
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Railway enthusiasts societies in the United Kingdom
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Railway enthusiasts societies in the United Kingdom
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