In the special International Railway Congress issue of the Railway Gazette for 1954 English Electric splashed out with their advertising budget taking a series of full colour pages for adverts looking at the company's lineage and products. English Electric had been formed in December 1918 and brought together a number of companies who had been involved in electrical and mechanical engineering along with wartime munitions work. Of the various concerns it was Dick, Kerr of Preston who had been most involved in transport; primarily tramways but also in railways. The following year EE purchased the Siemens Brothers Dynamo Works Limited at Stafford, works that were to become a major centre of EE activity.
Postwar and the early 1920s saw EE, like many other industrial concerns, struggle financially and in 1928 it was necessary to restructure and recapitalise the company to keep it as a going concern. By 1930 it was announced that much of the capital behind the restructuring came from the American Westinghouse businesses. EE now prospered somewhat to become one of the major UK electrical companies alongside GEC and the AEI group. During WW2 EE became involved in aircraft construction and, by acquiring Napier the aero engine company, the post-war aviation business became an important sector. In 1960 this became part of the new British Aircraft Corporation as the sector raionalised under Government pressure.
In terms of railway work, EE made many traction motors and electrification equipment that were used in 1930s schemes for expansion at London Underground and the Southern Railway. The construction of diesel locomotives began in 1936. In post WW2 years EE acquired both the Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns Ltd in 1955 to strengthen the business. As can be seen from the adverts much of EE's output had been in the form of exports and the UK railway stock shown dated back, some to pre-EE days. In a way the lack of UK materials shows the slow progress that the newly Nationalised British Railways were making in terms of Modernisation and the undertaking's somewhat slow pace in the replacement of steam with diesel and electric traction. In the years after 1954/55 as BR's Modernisation Plan took hold EE did supply many new items of rolling stock to BR.
This double page spread shows a range of locomotives from 1890 to 1954. These include the City & South London Railway's original locomotives from 1890, the Waterloo and City Railway's original multiple stock units from 1899 and the various Lancastrian electrifications carried out in the years prior to the First World War; these include the Lancashire & Yorkshire's pioneering Liverpool to Southport scheme that is still electrified as well as the long abandoned Bury - Holcombe line that used overhead whilst the rest of the Bury - Manchester line was provided with third-rail. The North Eastern Railway's Newport - Shildon line, with the first 1500v DC overhead that was likely intended to form the basis of the NER's more widespread adoption of electric traction. Amongst the export stock there appears; Japanese National Railway (Imperial Government Railways of Japan), Midi Railway of France, South Indian Railway's Madras suburban stock, Ceylon Government Railways diesel electric multiple units, Egyptian State Railways, the RENFE 3000v DC locomotives and equipment supplied to the Estrada de Ferros Santos a Jundial and the Rede Ferroviaria Do Nordeste Brazil. Of interest are two of the diesel and diesel electric units built for the pre-Nationalisation London Midland & Scottish Railways including the prototype locomotive 10000.
