[2] His hopes of joining the Southern Railway as a cadet were dashed as result of his failure to pass the school certificate examination.
[1] He was nevertheless offered a position in the Southern Railway's Public Relations Office at London Waterloo by Sir John Elliot.
[4][1] With the help of S. K. Packham, Chief Clerk in the Public Relations Office, Allan compiled a notebook with all the names, numbers, classes and shed allocations of Southern Railway locomotives, based on many of the requests he received about rolling stock.
[1] On the day of its publication, 21 November 1942, Allan presented copies to Grasemann and Oliver Bulleid, the Southern Railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer.
[1] This backfired as Bulleid objected violently to the publication of a book about his locomotives without his knowledge and he threatened Allan with dismissal from the Southern Railway as well as an action for breach of copyright if he were to publish.
[1] The 20,000 copies of the first edition of an ABC guide covering London Transport railways, trams, buses, trolleybuses and coaches sold out in a few days despite the poor quality paper used.
With Mollie Franklin (later his wife) he formed the Ian Allan Locospotters’ Club in 1949, which eventually grew to some 230,000 members.
Ian Allan was a highly active Freemason, initiated in October 1955 in the Ashford Manor Lodge No 5045 at Staines.
[10] He also led a successful campaign to reinstate steam-hauled excursions using privately owned locomotives, after the end of steam on British Rail.