Traffic Circular Supplements

When Peter Bancroft was the proprietor of Nebulous Books he compiled and printed a chronological listing of traffic circular supplements from 1934 up until (and including) 1991.

The Traffic Circular was a weekly notice issued to all operating staff containing useful information, lists of events, forthcoming engineering work, timetable changes, changes to rules and infrastructure changes and that kind of thing. It was the basic means of disseminating information regularly. Occasionally there was a development of a kind where a large amount of information or instructions had to be communicated, usually to a relatively small number of people. It came the practice for such information to be communicated by means of a 'Supplement' that contained an entire body of information, was intended to be retained and was only sent out to those who needed it. Traffic Circular supplements (until 1987 called 'Supplements to Traffic Circular') were thus a concise body of information, often not existing elsewhere. Usually they were confined to just one single topic. They are therefore of some historical interest.

Over their long life, predominantly from 1930 to 2000 they have covered a huge range of topics. The largest single topic area are signalling alterations, the kind of thing which on the main line would be called a signalling notice. Other popular topics are fares revisions, lists of speed restrictions, signal box opening times, rules and regulations changes and instructions for operating rolling stock.


Any comments, or additional information, will be especially welcome.





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Peter's list stopped in 1992 (but is still available from Nebulous Books) and with the aid of several industry friends a supplement has been compiled taking the story forward to 2000 when documentation of this type ceased to be issued in this form.

Also added is the somewhat shorter list of pre-1933 Supplements, back to 1917.

It is hoped that this helps complete the story, but notification of any errors or omissions would be gratefully received.

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