AT Didcot Railway Centre we have a museum that displays a small part of our wonderful collection of Great Western Railway memorabilia.

The GWT Museum is managed by the Great Western Trust, which is a separate, but related, charity to the Great Western Society that operates Didcot Railway Centre.

Over the years we have received a number bequests and many, many individual items that help us tell the story of the Great Western Railway and its staff.

I have previously written about some of the posters we have on display that advertise special trains to the races and we also have a number of handbills and leaflets encouraging people to travel on the Great Western Railway.

One is a publicity leaflet for GWR road motor and train services for Ascot Races in June 1924.

The GWR of course did not serve Ascot Station – in 1924 that was the Southern Railway, successor to the London & South Western Railway – so the leaflet advertises racing excursions to the GWR special stand in the centre of the racecourse.

It encourages racegoers to travel in comfort by the Great Western Railway.

I wonder what they thought when they changed at Maidenhead for a GWR road motor service that took them to the middle of the course, rather than the stands on the southern (in both senses of the word) side.

At the other end of the publicity scale a leaflet from 'The Great Western Railway of England' encourages businesses to 'Build your works on the GWR – the best location'.

We also have some very early (we think 1920s) posters advertising factory sites on the Great Western – 'Factories on the Great Western are Successful' and another saying that sites by the railway are good for prompt collection, express transit and smart delivery.

Factory owners were invited to apply to the GWR’s Development Department.

These double-sided posters are very rare survivors that we think were used at trade fairs.

They are the sort of ephemera that would have been thrown away after use.

At the moment we have on display in the GWT Museum a splendid 1930s GWR poster in Art Deco style with a green steam engine speeding under a very modern-looking bridge in front of a modern factory, and a goods train in the background.

Anyone interested in these unequalled facilities should contact the chief goods manager at Paddington Station – I wonder how many did.

The GWT Museum is open every day the railway centre is open.