The first envelope posts in November 2026
A railway journey, delivered by post.
Each month, a flat envelope with ten pieces of railway paper from one real journey: the print, the ticket, the route map, the timetable, the dining car menu, and a chapter of the story that ties them together. The places are real. The railway company, its people and its paperwork are ours.
Joining opens our payment page, run by Stripe. Your card details go to them, never to us. You can cancel from your account page at any time.
A drawing. Photographs go up here the week the first envelopes are finished.
Line clear
Made by two people, one month at a time.
Everything is printed, cut, folded and finished by hand in the West Midlands, which is why a month’s envelopes all go out together in the first week.
In every envelope
Ten pieces. One journey.
Printed on uncoated papers chosen to feel like the originals, cut to period sizes where we know them, and finished by hand: strung, folded, stamped. Every piece is marked as a replica.
1. The journey print
A4, poster style, posted flat. A new scene each month
2. The ticket
Edmondson size, 2¼ by 1 3/16 inches, on coloured card
3. The route map
The line mile by mile, with the gradients. Folds in three
4. The luggage label
Issued loose and unused, as the porter would have had it
5. The time table
Times the period way: 9.0, not 09:00
6. The story
An illustrated booklet, one chapter of the journey
7. The railway document
A letter, a berth chart, a telephone message. Different each month
8. The postcard
5½ by 3½ inches, with a penny stamp box
9. The dining car
A menu, a berth card or a breakfast bill from the journey
10. The envelope
Board-backed manila, sealed with the part number
Scroll sideways for the rest.
The first journey
The North Star
Monday, 10th August 1936. The night sleeper from Euston to Inverness, running in three parts for the grouse season. In berth 7 of car F is a shorthand typist from Camden Town who has never been north of Watford, with her late father’s watch in her handbag and a brother she has not seen in nine years.
One night, one train, told three times. The passenger does not know what the attendant knows. The attendant does not tell her what the fireman has asked him to keep back. You will know more than any of them, and the papers in each envelope carry clues to the next.
About the storyThree envelopes, three voices
Part One. Euston to Crewe
The Passenger
Told by Peggy Hollis, shorthand typist
Part Two. Crewe to Perth
The Attendant
Told by Albert Finch, sleeping car attendant
Part Three. Perth to Inverness
The Fireman
Told by Davie Hollis, fireman, Inverness shed
Four journeys a year, each in three parts. This one goes over Shap and Beattock in the dark, has breakfast above the clouds at Druimuachdar, and reaches Inverness at nine o’clock to the minute.
What is real
Real places. An invented railway.
Euston, Crewe, Carlisle, Beattock, Perth, Blair Atholl, Aviemore and Inverness are real, and so are the distances, the summits and the way the trains were worked. The London & Highland Railway, its crest, its timetable and its people are made up, so nothing in the envelope imitates a real company’s tickets or papers.
The facts are checked against sources, and anything we could not check is treated as fiction and listed as such.
1,484 ft
Druimuachdar, the highest point on Britain's main line railways
1,016 ft
Beattock summit, with banking engines on standby day and night
916 ft
Shap summit, 1 in 75 for five and a half miles from Tebay
2¼ in
The width of an Edmondson ticket, ours included
For gift-buyers
Buying for someone who loves trains?
You don’t need to know anything about railways. Enter their address at checkout and your own email for the account: you manage it, they get the post. It’s a story anyone can follow, and the enthusiast will find the gradients right. Nothing in the envelope mentions the price, and the receipt comes to you.
For a gift, three months at £44.97 or twelve at £164.89 is the tidier way: one payment, a fixed number of envelopes, and nothing renews afterwards, so there is nothing for them to cancel.
Monthly
£14.99
UK postage included
Arrives
1st week
of the month
Cancel
Any time
from your account
One envelope a month, for as long as you want it.
£14.99 a month including UK postage. The first envelope, The North Star, Part One, is posted in the first week of November 2026. Pause or cancel from your account whenever you like.
Joining opens our payment page, run by Stripe. Your card details go to them, never to us. You can cancel from your account page at any time.
Arrivesfirst week of the month
Postedflat, from the West Midlands
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