December 2025: Leaflet for train services to visit evacuees, December 1939
December’s Object of the Month is a leaflet from World War 2 advertising special train services for families to visit their evacuated children just before Christmas 1939. This poignant document brings home the heartache that separated families must have felt, particularly being apart at what would normally be a time for celebration.
The leaflet details times and fares from Paddington on Sunday 10th and Sunday 17th December 1939. The list of destinations shows where children from the cities were evacuated to. We can see from the arrival and return times that families were given as much time as possible together.
One of the very first war time roles that the GWR was engaged in was the evacuation of children from cities to the relative safety of the countryside. Even before war was declared, plans were drawn up for evacuation so the GWR and the other major railway companies were prepared and on standby to put these plans into action. On August 31st 1939, the day before Germany invaded Poland, the order to begin the evacuation was given and the following day the mass movement of children began. The GWR was responsible for the majority of the children moved from North and East London, via Ealing Broadway and Paddington Station during the four days of evacuation in September 1939.
On September 1st, 58 evacuation trains were run by the GWR alone, carrying 44,042 children from the capital to the countryside. By the 4th September the number was reduced to 28 trains transporting 17,796 children. In total the GWR ran 163 trains from London during this 4 day period, evacuating 112,994 children. The evacuation story did not end there however, for the GWR was subsequently involved with the re-evacuation of children from the South and East Coasts to safer places, and the evacuation of more children from the London area.
We can see from this timetable that the role that the GWR played in the evacuation story was not limited to the mass movement of children. The company continued to provide support to the families of evacuees by putting on these dedicated excursion trains enabling families to be reunited for a short period of time.
