Great Western Coffee Shop

Not overwhelmed with with guesses so far but 2, 3 and 6 predate 1964.

I am underwhelmed by guesses too - please free to make multiple guesses

On that note, there is something about No. 1 that suggest Yeovil possibly even Swindon (and dare I say Melksham) down to Weymouth. It is the sparce Sunday service with just the last two stations served. Time: in the 1990s. The letter 'b' looks like a request stop notation of sorts

I know where 7 is. I?m just trying to date it.   I?m sure you?ve posted it somewhere before.

2 and 3 do - just - predate 1964.  6 does NOT, but represents the era that was coming to an end around that time.

I am underwhelmed by guesses too - please free to make multiple guesses.  To help quizzes be customer / passenger / guest / member appropriate in the future, I am asking myself
1. Are people actually [very] interested but don't have the knowledge to comment?
2. Have I made the quiz too hard?
3. Is other news today taking over their time?
4. Am I just weird enjoying old timetables, such that other quizzes would be more appropriate?

To answer your questions above:
1. Yes, very interested but don't have enough knowledge.
2. No, just challenging.
3. It is sadly.
4. No, all your quizzes are interesting, and this one is fascinating.

As regards the actual timetables, no 5 has stations that are notably evenly spaced as well as being close together. That, its length, and the poor Sunday service suggest it is mostly a commuter line* in a large town or small city, but I can't place it yet.

*The fact that there are no more trains at rush hour times still confirms this to me. I remember just how poor the timing of some commuter services were just at the times you need them.

Possibly 1980s.

Ok - Swindon- Westbury and I'll suggest 1992.

I'm going to have a very wild guess that 6 is somewhere in the USA.

No. 6, Shipping lines had timetables like that with fixed places and return times reading bottom up. 1930s my guess.

I think No. 7 is from North America and quite recently. The wording 'Rail Station' is not East Atlantic English and I swear I read the word 'Transit' on the page behind - in reverse of course. Was it 2018 you and your good lady took the cruise?

As regards the actual timetables, no 5 has stations that are notably evenly spaced as well as being close together. That, its length, and the poor Sunday service suggest it is mostly a commuter line* in a large town or small city, but I can't place it yet.

*The fact that there are no more trains at rush hour times still confirms this to me. I remember just how poor the timing of some commuter services were just at the times you need them.

Possibly 1980s.

I think no. 3 is Maidenhead-High Wycombe - you've already given the date - early sixties - which stylistically looks right as well.

I'm going to have a very wild guess that 6 is somewhere in the USA.

I think No. 7 is from North America and quite recently. The wording 'Rail Station' is not East Atlantic English and I swear I read the word 'Transit' on the page behind - in reverse of course. Was it 2018 you and your good lady took the cruise?

Looking back at the data, I can see that pattern - but it's a long way from there.  "Something about the pattern", yes, indeed.  The first part of the route shown in the table now has a much better service (though not faring well under Covid) correction - it's closed - I misread the bit torn off but the rest of the line has been closed - that was within a few years of the timetable I have shown. The final section now offers a heritage service.   Almost a microcosm of how the sparse services have gone and the more frequent ones have built up - wasn't it "twice the number of passenger journeys being made by train, but I half the route mileage"?

No. 6 is indeed in the USA.    My wife and I did indeed take a cruise to that country last autumn, but the timetable 'sampled' was purchased in Birmingham (England) the previous spring.  Much more recent than the 1930s.

2 is Par - Newquay. 1962ish

I think 6 is the Chicago Burlington & Quincy between Chicago and Kansas City. Trains 35/36 and 55/56 are the Kansas City Zephyr and the American Royal Zephyr respectively. Presumably the era is immediately before Amtrak, so 1960s?

Really amazed that I can take a random, interesting-looking page from an obscure overseas publication that a vendor was offloading cheap, strip out all the key words and have a member identify it exactly. Truly we have some  impressive members here.

Yes, it is. Right in both aspects. Summer of 1963 - same book as the Maidenhead to High Wycombe table. Quite a rarity in the examples I have looked at, as most services have been totally lost or greatly improved over the last 60 years.  Perhaps with a return of a morning commutable / day out from Newquay train, then maybe Mid-Cornwall Metro, we'll see this line following that same (the more positive) trend in coming years.

Is 5 the Exmouth branch, before the new stations started appearing?

On 9, the two rows of connection times - but clearly not long distances - are suspicious. I reckon the penultimate row of through train times is London Bridge, the last line of through times is Cannon Street and the two lines below are Waterloo East and Charing Cross.

Really struck by what a poor service 1 is.  The style of the timetable suggests late 60s - that design came in with the BR Corporate Identity in 65.  I did wonder if it was Westbury - Weymouth in Winter 65 - the more frequent bit at the top being Westbury - Castle Cary, the last two stations being Upwey and Weymouth with just the SW services that called at Upwey.

I agree.  I think 9 is Uckfield/Tunbridge Wells/East Grinstead - London just after Lewes - Uckfield shut in 1969.

I?m in full Amtrak mode at present, and as a gesture of confidence have re-booked my New York-Chicago-San Francisco run (Lake Shore Limited/California Zephyr) for next October - it should have been this year.

For soaking up the scenic grandeur of the North American continent, nothing compares with Amtrak?s California Zephyr train. This classic three-day journey travels nearly 2500 miles (4000km) across prairies, deserts, the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada on its way from Chicago to San Francisco. Scenery is magnificent throughout ? especially when seen through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lounge car ? but if you can only do one section, opt for the riveting 185-mile (298km) stretch between Denver and Glenwood Springs, where the train travels through an often roadless wilderness of deep, narrow gorges near the Colorado River?s headwaters.

It isn't - though the journey times look roughly right.  Look much further east, and this one's not (G)WR