Historically this peculiar Imperial size was, as their name suggests, twice the size of a Royal sized poster, which measured 25 x 20”.

In the days of a nationalised rail industry, it made total sense to standardize platform posters and timetable sheets across the entire rail network, and DR sized display cases were fitted in every station and platform, and are still used to this day.

Prior to metrification, poster sizes were distinguished by a name, rather than the more bland A sizes of today. Other Imperial sized posters had wonderful such names as Emperor, Elephant and Princess.

The nearest metric sized poster, A1 at 1188 x 841mm, won’t fit into these existing cases, and so the tradition of using DR size posters continues.

We started printing platform and timetable posters for British Rail back in the 1980s. These were always described as DRs by everyone at the railway. We used to call into their Central Advertising Services department. I guess this would be called something a bit slicker nowadays.

We had to collect what used to be called ‘camera ready’ artwork, which someone had put together by literally sticking bits of paper together, and Letraset rub-down lettering, on a large flat backing card. You had to treat this artwork very carefully as bits of the wording used to fall off every now and again, which created problems if you couldn’t work out where it had come from.

When we started printing full colour promotional platform posters, the artwork was a mixture of photographic transparencies, overlay sheets and what used to be called ‘marked up’ overlays which described what colours everything had to print in.

Traditionally we used to screenprint these advertising posters, as they were too big to print in any other way, and the print runs weren’t long enough for any other print process to be viable.

When things moved on, and the artwork was starting being produced by computer, we were able to start printing the posters on our new large inkjet printer, which was the beginning of the end of a lot of the old traditional printing skills.

DR posters are now printed very efficiently on very fast digital presses, trimmed to size, rolled into tubes, and distributed all over the rail network for fitting.

The sizes we are asked to print most commonly are A2, A1 or A0 posters, however you can have any size you like as they are cut to size once printed.

• A4 (210mm x 297mm)
• A3 (297mm x 420mm)
• A2 (420mm x 594mm)
• A1 (597mm x 841mm)
• A0 (841mm x 1189mm)

Standard A Sizes for posters

For further information please read our blog poster sizes explained.