Observer

Full Name: The New Zealand Railway Observer

Publisher: NZRLS

Issue Frequency: Bi-monthly

Editor: Carter; Graeme

ISSN:

Width (mm): 210

Height (mm): 297

Orientation: Portrait

Format: Booklet

First Issue:

Last Issue:

The New Zealand Railway Observer is New Zealand's oldest rail enthusiast publication, started by Tom McGavin in 1944 under the guise of the New Zealand Railway Correspondence Society. Annual subscriptions were set such that they would cover the cost of production of the Observer, limited to 36 pages per year at that stage. The first 74 issues were double-sided foolscap sheets, Gestetner copied, and made available to a relatively small group of members. Demand grew, and it quickly became a national publication. Within 2 years, some pages were offset printed, allowing photographs to be included, and from 1947, this was done 3 times a year. From 1952 virtually every issue had some higher quality pages. All issues up to №74 used the foolscap format (somewhat taller and narrower than A4) and were effectively loose sheets, not terribly practical for archiving. At some stage the decision was made to reprint the early volumes in a bound book format by adding a cover and from Volume 2 included an index of articles. Volumes 1 - 3 were further reprinted as a single publication in 1990.

From issue 1, page numbering has always been continuous through each Volume, with 6 issues per Volume up until 1953, at which point it was changed to 4 issues per year. Volume 1 however started off in May 1944 with 4, monthly issues, followed by 2 bi-monthly ones and the year finished with 50 pages produced. Volume 2 totaled 102 pages and Vol3 had 110 pages plus a 9 page supplement. All significantly more than was ever envisaged.

From 1961, there was an adjustment of the months an issue spanned, combined with a skipped issue. Issue 86 spanned 3 months, whereas issue 87 spanned 5 months, resulting in the last issue that year (and from then on) would be September - November rather than October to December and the new year issue became December to February.

In 1958 a major decision was made to produce all future issues using the offset printing process in a new smaller format with a distinctive colour and a photograph on the front cover. The new size was 9 inches high by 6 inches wide (approx 225 x 150mm) and was folded and stapled as a booklet. This format continued for 20 years with only a slight change in cover layout from Issue 131. These smaller format issues generally had from 32 - 38 pages, with an index to each volume being produced early in the following year. There were some production issues in 1971 and 1972 with only 3 issues those years, this occurred again in 1990, however that formally became a double issue (202/3)

Issue 153 (in the year 1978) saw a slightly larger format introduced being now 240mm high x 180 mm wide, with the cover remaining much as before. There was however a short-lived cover layout change from Issue 165 - 172 where most issues had whole-cover photos, with issue 173 reverting to the earlier format but also being the first issue with a full colour image on the cover. This was repeated for some issues over the next 2 years and from issue 186 all cover images were in full colour, often front and back, outside and inside.

In 2000, there was again a change in frequency. While only 4 issues were produced that year, Issue 240 spanned 3 months, issue 241 spanned 5 months and from thereon, it became a bi-monthly production again.

With New Zealand having adopted the metric system of measurements in 1974, Paper sizes were also progressively standardized with paper for non-standard production becoming harder to source and more expensive. So it was in 1992 that the Observer also changed to A4 format, and continues so into the future.

With issue numbers now approaching 400, it creates quite a large amount of data to list in a table showing year/month with issue numbers. I have therefore decided to break it into sections to avoid either a very wide or very long table, with generally 30 years per section.

The Tables below show each issue and their date span. click on the Issue number to access the page relating to that issue. As the first 14 Volumes are more readily available in complete volume set, The Volume numbers will also link to pages representing those publications.

Issues of The New Zealand Railway Observer for the years 1944 - 1970 (Scroll down for more)

Year	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970
Month/Vol				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27
Dec																					87	90	94	98	102	106	110	114	118	122
Jan					7	13	19	25	31	37	43	49	55	59	63	67	71	75	79	83
Feb
Mar					8	14	20	26	32	38	44	50										91	95	99	103	107	111	115	119	123
Apr													56	60	64	68	72	76	80	84
May				1	9	15	21	27	33	39	45	51
Jun				2																	88	92	96	100	104	108	112	116	120	124
Jul				3	10	16	22	28	34	40	46	52	57	61	65	69	73	77	81	85
Aug				4
Sep				5	11	17	23	29	35	41	47	53									89	93	97	101	105	109	113	117	121	125
Oct													58	62	66	70	74	78	82	86
Nov				6	12	18	24	30	36	42	48	54
Dec

Issues of The New Zealand Railway Observer for the years 1971 - 2000 (Scroll down for more)

Year	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Month/Vol	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57
Dec	126	129	132	136	140	144	148	152	156	160	164	168	172	176	180	184	188	192	196	200	204	208	212	216	220	224	228	232	236	240
Jan
Feb
Mar	127	130	133	137	141	145	149	153	156	161	165	169	173	177	181	185	189	193	197	201	205	209	213	217	221	225	229	233	237	241
Apr
May
Jun		131	134	138	142	146	150	154	157	162	166	170	174	178	182	186	190	194	198	202/3	206	210	214	218	222	226	230	234	238
Jul
Aug																														242
Sep	128		135	139	143	147	151	155	159	163	167	171	175	179	183	187	191	195	199		207	211	215	219	223	227	231	235	239
Oct																														243
Nov

Issues of The New Zealand Railway Observer for the years 2000 - 2030.

Year	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Month/Vol	58	59	60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87
Dec	244	250	256	262	268	274	280	286	292	298	304	310	316	322	328	334	340	346	352	358	364	370	376	382	388
Jan
Feb	245	251	257	263	269	275	281	287	293	299	305	311	317	323	329	335	341	347	353	359	365	371	377	383	389
Mar
Apr	246	252	258	264	270	276	282	288	294	300	306	312	318	324	330	336	342	348	354	360	366	372	378	384	390
May
Jun	247	253	259	265	271	277	283	289	295	301	307	313	319	325	331	337	343	349	355	361	367	373	379	385	391
Jul
Aug	248	254	260	266	272	278	284	290	296	302	308	314	320	326	332	338	344	350	356	362	368	374	380	386	392
Sep
Oct	249	255	261	267	273	279	285	291	297	303	309	315	321	327	333	339	345	351	357	362	369	375	381	387	393
Nov