How Sales is organised
How does Sales operate?
A number of printed items are also available from us, as well as magazine binders. These are listed in the Sales List.
Separately we offer a selection of over 2500 photographs too, supplied as JPGs for 25p each with a minimum order of £1. These depict both locomotives and locations, mostly dating from around the late 1950s. In addition to the GER section, many of the former LNER lines apart from the GCR get some coverage.
Does every item in the Sales List have a file in the Files Emporium?
They’re easy to find, too. Suppose you want the file corresponding to Information Sheet M420 on basic ticket office procedure. Simply go to the Files Emporium and put ‘M420’ in the search box. Hit Search and you’ll be taken straight to it – File RC019: BR(E) Basic Ticket Office Procedure 1969.
Does every file in the Files Emporium have its printed version in the Sales List?
Can you supply me with a past Journal?
For past Journals we offer J1-200 complete as a download or on a DVD. For individual issues the quick, cheap and easy way is to go to the Files Emporium and order a PDF for 50p. They are good quality files complete with bookmarks, and the most recent ones are derived from the files sent to the printers.
If a ‘real’ Journal is important to you, as with all printed items you must go via the Sales List. Typically they cost £2.50 plus an amount to cover the ever-increasing postage (sent second class). If the Journal you require is an early one which is out of print (indicated in the Sales List by an asterisk), we will usually supply a second-hand copy in at least fair condition. Very rarely the best we can do is a reprinted replica.
About the Files Emporium
I am not a member of the GERS. Can I make purchases from you?
Yes, with pleasure. Non-members are more than welcome to buy items from us, with just two exceptions: sales of copies of the GERS Journal and News are restricted to our members. That is to respect the copyright requirements of some of our contributors.
I’ve just bought a Journal in the Files Emporium – why can’t I download it?
How are items arranged in the Files Emporium?
They are listed alphabetically. The first one is Section CD, which contains all our DVDs and CDs. The next is Section DL, which lists all the download versions of the DVDs. Then comes DS – scale drawings. Others follow such as LM – Locomotives, Rolling Stock and Shipping; RE – Railways: Engineering, Infrastructure and Track; RG – Railways: Guides and Locations; SG – Signalling Topics; and TO – Trains, Operating them and Organising them. We end with TW – Working Timetables. We recommend you take a look and see what there is.
Some files do not fit neatly into just one Category, in which case we may list them in more than one. Thus in SG we include examples such as LM074 ‘From the Cab 2019-2023’ – a series of articles written by a Greater Anglia driver based at Colchester whose turns take him over the Fens as far as Peterborough, and some of whose comments might prove of interest to present-day signalling enthusiasts. The files are listed alphabetically, so here this precedes SG001.
For using the Files Emporium, we suggest either browsing through a chosen Category or else going to the search facility to look for a particular location or topic.
How can I find what new items have recently been added to the Files Emporium?
How do I use the search facility in the Files Emporium?
The finds then all come up, listed in alphabetic order of their codes. Thus in the case of Wymondham the 19 finds go LM051, LM059, MP017 .... followed by more items in the MP, RC, RH, RR, TO, TP and finally TW series.
If you are looking for any GER location, please remember that it is bound to feature also in MP001 (the 1919 GER system maps) and in several public and working timetables in Sections TP and TW. In each of these cases there is no way the names of every station on the GER could be listed within the titles, descriptions or my extra box, so it will not come up in the search. Your only way of finding those ones is to browse through the timetables.
Likewise there may be an article of interest in one of the magazines we do – the Locomotive Magazine, Railway & Travel Monthly, ‘Railways’, Railway World and the like. Such references won’t come up in the search either, but generally their descriptions include a link to see their full contents list which is itself word-searchable.
Avoid looking for ‘Wymondham station’. You would get 43 finds, but most of them are clearly irrelevant. It probably starts with any items where it finds both words, then it focuses its attention on looking for just one word such as ‘RG023 Quy station’. For some reason the 43 items found do include some but by no means all the 19 that actually have ‘Wymondham’ in them. If you wanted King’s Lynn, for instance you are advised to search just for Lynn – lest you miss entries for Kings Lynn without the apostrophe. You can of course search for topics rather than places, such as ticket or freight.
What do you offer for modellers?
We have many scale drawings in Sections LG and DS, which you are advised to browse.
If you are interested in early GER or even ECR locomotives, we would refer you to our extracts from the Locomotive Magazine in LM.DL. These are illustrated with over 300 drawings – they show only a side view and are undimensioned, but are to scale, and you can scale all your measurements from their wheel base and diameters, which are always given in the articles. You are also supplied with enlarged JPG files of each one which you can print out on A4 paper.
One other potentially very useful item is file NX021, a comprehensive index with an East Anglian flavour to drawings which appeared in the model railway press between 1925 and 2000 – locomotives, rolling stock, lineside features and buildings. If anyone would like to contribute a Part 2 covering the next quarter of a century, that would be welcome!
I’m interested in railways but not the GER. Do you have things which might appeal to me?
To see a full list of such items, go to the Files Emporium home page. In the red-bordered box just below the search window, in the bottom line there is a blue link to click on.
I’ve accidentally put two copies of a file into my shopping cart – how can I change that?
The problem is simple to resolve. Just to the right of the rogue 2 in the shopping cart are two buttons. Either can do the job for you. The red one with the x removes that item completely from your cart, so you can start again. The blue button is perhaps quicker: change the 2 to a 1, then press that button to update the cart.
It’s not uncommon for us to see two copies ordered – and paid for – apparently unawares. A refund of a small amount makes no commercial sense: we get nothing whatsoever for that item, but have to pay commission fees on it twice, once to receive it and a second time as we send it back. When I spot it, therefore, I usually offer the customer a choice of a different file instead.
What method of payment in the Files Emporium is best?
If you have a PayPal account you wish to use, that seems to work fine. PayPal can also handle card payments by inviting you to continue as a guest, but our experiences of this are rather more mixed. Sometimes the payment proceeds without incident, but occasionally our customer gets hassle – the worst of these is when, apparently at random, the company decides to do a check on the transaction, presumably to guard against money laundering. The outcome is that your order is described as ‘pending’ rather than ‘complete’, and no download is released. They then keep you waiting for a couple of days or so before clearing the payment and finally accepting the order.
Nochex is a reputable British company who specialise in handling card payments. We added them as an option after a series of unfortunate difficulties with PayPal, and they have created no problems whatsoever for our buyers. If we were making a card payment ourselves, we would certainly go down this route.
I want to pay by card with Nochex, but it’s not being offered to me. Why?
If you are purchasing a file which costs pence, therefore, the only way to avoid PayPal is to add a second file to bring your order to £1 or more.
I’m using Nochex to pay by card. They ask for ‘billing city’. What do I put for that?
From our experience it’s not too critical what you enter. One customer even put the city where his card company was based, which was nowhere near where he lived – but the transaction still went smoothly. If you leave it blank, though, the payment is sure to fail.
Where are the files I’ve purchased?
When you make your first purchase you set up an account with us. This effectively creates your personal ‘locker’ on our website, opened not with a key but with the password you choose as you set it up.
There is a blue link to ‘My Account’ near the top right of every page in the Files Emporium. This will invite you to log in to access your personal locker – there’s a ‘forgot password’ option if need be.
Once you get in, go to the bit marked downloads. Every file you have ever purchased from us, both in the latest order and in the past, will be there for you. They stay there indefinitely, so if you mislay one of your files you can always retrieve a copy from there.
If I buy a DVD I have the back-up files on it, should I need them. Is there any similar back-up if I choose the download version?
Yes. All your downloads remain available to you in ‘My Account’ – for an explanation of that, see the answer to “Where are the files I purchased?” immediately above.
Even if that didn’t work out for any reason, just tell us you purchased that download but have somehow lost it and we’ll gladly re-send it to you.
In your magazine collections (such as Trains Illustrated or the LNER Magazines) I can open the PDFs of the magazines OK but nothing happens when I try to do a single rapid search of the whole lot. Why?
Most of you will have some form of PDF reader on your machine which enables you to open the magazine files. The rapid search we have compiled is specifically an Adobe product, however, which is why we recommend Adobe Acrobat Reader – any other PDF reader is unlikely to cope with it.
You can download that for free from Adobe’s website. You won’t have to make it your default PDF reader unless you wish, but so long as it’s there our fast search should be able to latch on to it.
You will then get two windows appear – a narrow search window on the left and an Acrobat Reader which fills the rest of the space (one or both may have to be brought up into active mode from the bottom of the screen). We supply detailed instructions for the search, but once you have those two windows set up OK the rest is fairly intuitive.
How do I order a gift voucher for the Files Emporium?
The voucher is sent as an e-mail. It will never expire. If the recipient places an order for more than its value, they just pay the extra. With an order that is less than the value of the voucher, the balance remains on it to be used again.
To read more about it go to the Files Emporium home page and select it as the fourth item down on the left hand side. There is a link in the very bottom line of what comes up for you to start your purchase. When you fill in your name and that of the recipient, this is exactly how they will appear in the e-mail message – so insert friendly versions of both instead of full and formal ones. When completed it appears as an item in your shopping cart, to be paid for by PayPal or Nochex in the usual way.
About the Sales List
How can I get the latest version of the Sales List?
If you can access the internet, go to the GERS website then from Sales select the Sales List. You can download it from there.
If not send a big SAE (with a large-letter stamp) to the Sales Officer at 14 Quantock Close, Bedford MK41 9EW – you will then receive a printed copy.
How can I find out more about an item in the Sales List?
The Sales List occupies eight A4 pages, but even so in order to fit all the items in we have to give only brief details of each one in small print.
If you are able to go on-line, there are two ways to learn more. One is to look up its equivalent in the Files Emporium: we have no constraint on space there, so you can read a far more detailed description accompanied by a picture or two. The other is to visit the Sales List section, where you can download something called the expanded Sales List which provides more information.
Otherwise you are welcome to send a letter to the Sales Officer explaining what you wish to know. An SAE for the reply would be appreciated. Unfortunately the expanded Sales List itself is too big to print out and send – it currently has about 50 pages and is still growing!
I’m planning to bind a volume of the Journals. Can you provide a suitable index?
Yes. The Sales List includes indexes to every volume. When you are ordering, be sure to specify that you want it for binding. We will then send it in a suitable format, with pages unstapled.
Please be aware that we will use paper that is of a decent quality but not special (not acid-free, for instance). If the paper itself is important to you, you would be better served by purchasing the Files Emporium copy (in Section NX, Indexes and Lists), which is specifically for binding, then print it out yourself.
Alternatively if you wished us to print the Sales List edition on special paper we would be happy to oblige, but with the order you would need to send us some of it in a board-backed A4 envelope.
How do I place a Sales List order?
There are two ways. One is to visit the Sales List section of our website, where you will find a facility to place an order and pay for it on line. The second is to send a letter to the Sales Officer at 14 Quantock Close, Bedford MK41 9EW, accompanied by a cheque made payable to GERS Publications.
Why might my cheque for a Sales List order be returned?
Assuming you’ve remembered to sign it, the common reason is because you’ve made it payable to the Society. Sales has a separate bank account, and unless you have made it payable to GERS Publications the bank nowadays won’t accept it.
About the Photographs
The purchase of photographs calls for a PayPal payment. Can I use Nochex?
We can arrange that. Instead of placing a formal order, contact sales@gersociety.org.uk with a message listing the photos you would like and requesting a Nochex invoice for them. This will come to you as an e-mail with a blue button to make the payment by card.
Can I buy just a single photograph?
The photo JPGs are priced at 25p each, with a minimum order of £1. The reason for this is PayPal charges – to take a payment of 25p would actually cost us more than that, so we would make a loss!
You can indeed buy a single photo, but it will cost you £1. In terms of value for money it would make better sense to pick up to another three to accompany it.
May I print out a photograph JPG I have purchased?
You are welcome to do that for your own personal use, but results may vary. The originals were quite small snapshots, usually less than postcard-sized, housed in a set of albums. They differed in clarity and sharpness, of course.
Each one was scanned at a resolution of 400 dpi. Viewing on-screen should be fine, but we can’t promise that a large print-out will always prove acceptable.
