---
title: Holiday Warning - War Trains Come Before Holiday Trains
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-holiday-warning-war-trains-come-before-holiday-trains-1939/
description: A text poster in red on cream with an orange border, under the banner of the four railway companies, says holiday train services will be limited in August
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Holiday Warning - War Trains Come Before Holiday Trains

[![Holiday Warning - War Trains Come Before Holiday Trains, 1939 UK poster: A text poster in red on cream with an orange border](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-holiday-warning-war-trains-come-before-holiday-trains-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-holiday-warning-war-trains-come-before-holiday-trains-1939.jpg)

# Holiday Warning - War Trains Come Before Holiday Trains

A text poster in red on cream with an orange border, under the banner of the four railway companies, says holiday train services will be limited in August and tells readers to stay at home. The tell is the closing line, 'You may be stranded if you travel', which stages a personal harm to secure compliance.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
HOLIDAY WARNING

WAR TRAINS
come before
HOLIDAY TRAINS

During the August holiday
limited services only
will be run.

STAY AT HOME

You may be stranded
if you travel.

[logos:] GWR  LMS  BRITISH RAILWAYS  LNER  SR
[imprint:] No. 68.  JAS. TRUSCOTT & SON, LTD., LONDON & TONBRIDGE
```

[← H.M.S. "Nelson" Firing a Broadside With Her 16-Inch Guns](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-hms-nelson-firing-a-broadside-1939/) [Spend Your Holidays on the Land - With Pay! At a Volunteer Agricultural Camp →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-holidays-on-the-land-volunteer-agricultural-camp-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)