BOEING 727

Ian Allan Publishing was founded by Ian Allan ( 1922 - 2015 ) in 1942. Working then in the Public Relations Department for the Southern Railway at Waterloo Station ( London Borough of Lambeth, London, England ), he decided he could deal with many of the requests he received about rolling stock by collecting the information into a book. The result was his first book : ABC of Southern Locomotives. This proved to be a success, contributing to the emergence of trainspotting as a popular hobby in the United Kingdom, and leading to the formation of the company. Ian Allan Publishing has grown from a small producer of books for train enthusiasts and spotters to a large transport publisher. Each year it publishes books covering subjects such as military and civil aviation, naval and maritime topics, buses, trams, trolleybuses and steam railways, including history, preservation and modern operations. The headquarters is at the western end of Shepperton Railway Station ( Surrey, England ). At the end of 2016, the company announced that they were withdrawing from railway publishing. Crécy Publishing acquired these titles, including the Oxford and abc imprints, but would no longer publish these under the Ian Allan name. ( source : Wikipedia )