Vintage Railway & Train Posters

Roger Broders could make you want a train ticket with a few blocks of colour. Calvi, Mont Blanc, a spa town you hadn’t been thinking about five minutes ago: all rather persuasive places to be going.

Digitally restored reproductions from £19.99, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper with pigment inks. Printed locally and shipped from the UK, US and Canada. Supplied unframed.

Vintage railway posters collection — 1928 PLM Calvi Corsica poster by Roger Broders

The vintage railway posters here include French PLM and SNCF designs, American destinations and Alpine scenery. Some celebrate the journey; others give the view at the end almost all the attention. Pick a route you love, or let an Art Deco landscape make a strong argument for changing your plans. The ticket can wait. The wall is available now.

Railway advertising with a view

A railway poster doesn’t always need a train. A mountain, a beach or a particularly inviting town can make the case for a journey just as effectively. That is part of the pleasure of this collection: railway history and landscape illustration often share the same sheet of paper.

Roger Broders’s PLM designs provide a good place to begin. Calvi brings Corsica into the picture, Mont Blanc turns attention towards the Alps, and Charbonnières les Bains offers another sort of escape. Compare the way each destination is reduced to shapes that still feel distinctive. The image needs to work quickly, but it can leave you wanting to look for much longer.

France, the Alps and American destinations

The selection also includes French railway work by Constant Duval and Bernard Villemot, with the Loire and the Basque Coast adding different landscapes and architectural subjects. Zermatt brings another Alpine view. American designs include Chicago, Indiana Dunes and Santa Fe’s California advertising; Canadian Pacific’s settlement poster tells a different sort of railway story.

Those subjects give you several ways to choose. A railway enthusiast may begin with a company or network. A traveller may choose a place with a personal connection. For a room, compare how much sky, architecture and landscape each design contains. A high mountain composition and a coastal scene can change the feel of the same space quite dramatically.

Build a journey across the wall

Try a pair that suggests a journey, or two landscapes connected by a repeated colour. You don’t need to keep to one country or railway company. A common visual rhythm can bring different destinations together while allowing each print its own personality.

For more illustrated escapes, browse Travel & Tourism. If the aircraft is part of the attraction, continue to vintage airline posters.