Tracking Railways Archives Project - TRAP
A Special Interest Group of the Railway & Canal Historical Society
Introduction
The aim of the TRACKING RAILWAY ARCHIVES PROJECT is to help with locating sources for historical research in the study of the history of railways and the railway manufacturing industry. It has operated for several years as an association of railway societies and became part of the Railway and Canal Historical Society in 2008.
Railway historians have long been faced with the irony that they have an exceptionally rich heritage of railway archives to draw upon, yet this resource is so extensive and dispersed that it has been impossible to make a comprehensive search for material relevant to a particular piece of research. The solution clearly lies in the expansion of the UK National Archives network of on-line catalogues of archive collections, with the facility for keyword searches. TRAP enabled the transfer of 3,600 pages of paper catalogues - representing about 35,000 individual items – of railway company archives held in 45 English and Welsh county record offices and the National Railway Museum to the records of The National Archives.
TRAP is now a Special Interest Group of the Railway and Canal Historical Society whose objective is to promote historical research on railways, canals and other modes of transport associated with them by collaboration or competition. As such, TRAP will concentrate on identifying sources which are not yet included in A2A. For more details about the society, see www.rchs.org.uk
Access to Archives (A2A) - a fully searchable online catalogue
The A2A website www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a contains a fully searchable database of the items held locally in England and Wales, for instance in County Record Offices.
A couple of hints for users of the database. If you want to find precise titles, such as "Great Western", use quotation marks. To find collections in particular repositories start by using the ARCHON Directory www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon. A link is in place from the bottom of the relevant ARCHON page to A2A. If you click on this link you will be taken to a list on A2A of all the records held at a particular repository.
If you are looking for information on railways in Scotland, the Scottish Archive Network (www.scan.org.uk) provides a searchable online catalogue for the National Archives of Scotland and over 50 other archives.
On-line guide to other railway related archives throughout the UK.
TRAP is now devoted to listing lesser-known railway-related archives held by libraries, museums and other institutions and by individuals, to which access may be given for research purposes, but whose catalogues are not yet available through A2A or the Scottish Archive Network. This data is presented in two parts on this web site.
- Indexes under various headings, such as railway company, showing which repositories hold relevant material. See Index List.
- Summary of the holdings in each collection. Start with Repository List
If you have information to contribute or any comments on this web site, we would like to hear from you. Anyone can help. Please e-mail :
. We will then send you a data input form and associated notes. You can use the same contact to let us know any corrections to the information.
Master List of Railway Companies
This list identifies known railway companies. The name is in a standardised form which will be used as part of the company description based on the ISAAR (International Standard Archival Authority Record) format. The ISAAR reference number is included. Click here to see the list.
Family History
If you have reached this web site researching family history, information on how railway records can be used for family history research can be found by clicking here.