Press Release -- Rail Industry National Archive

[martin_wynne]

Just received this press release:

______________________________________________

 

Establishment of a Rail Industry National Archive

 

A national archive is to be established for today’s rail industry

following a ground breaking agreement between the Railway Heritage

Committee (RHC) and the National Museum of Science & Industry (NMSI),

parent body of the National Railway Museum. The new archive will enable

public access to the records of train operators and other rail companies

as well as their long term care and conservation.

 

As they are released by rail companies, records designated by the RHC

will be transferred to the care of the National Railway Museum. They

will be made available for research in /Search Engine/ at the Museum in

York and at the Science Museum Libraries and Archives in London and at

Wroughton, near Swindon. Material which needs to remain commercially

confidential for a period will be preserved in deep storage in the

Museum’s new purpose-built archive repository.

 

The agreement between RHC and NMSI was triggered by concerns that, as

companies such as GNER and Railtrack ceased to operate, their surviving

records would become fragmented and inaccessible, and the story of a

vibrant period of railway history would be lost.

 

By providing document transfer facilities between /Search Engine /and

other NMSI sites, it will also become much easier for people from all

over the UK to access these important archives.

 

Railway Heritage Committee Chairman Peter Ovenstone said:

 

“Railways were Britain’s gift to the world, and we have world class

museums where locomotives and other railway artefacts are preserved.

This can now be matched by the comprehensive preservation of and access

to the records of today’s rapidly changing railway, thanks to the

cooperation and foresight of NMSI.â€

 

National Railway Museum Director, Steve Davies MBE said:

 

“/Search Engine/, our railway archive based at York, is already a

popular and valuable resource for historians and academics into the

history of Britain’s railway down to 1997. The Rail Industry National

Archive will ensure that the records continue unbroken into the period

of privatisation – a unique and continuous record of the changes in

business and society that the railway brought to Britain.â€

 

The National Archives at Kew keep records from the British Rail era and

before, but this changed on privatisation as their role is to keep

public records, not those from today’s private sector.

 

Records and plans relating to the railway lines, buildings and

structures of the current network will continue to be kept at Network

Rail’s base in York, where most are still required as working documents.

 

* *

 

*Notes to Editors:*

 

The Railway Heritage Committee was established by the Railways Act, 1993

(as amended by subsequent legislation including the Railway Heritage

Act, 1996.) It has the statutory responsibility to designate artefacts

and records belonging to the railway industry which are historically

significant and should be permanently preserved. The Committee also

decides which organisations should hold the items designated when no

longer required by the railway industry. 'Over 1,000 artefacts have been

designated by the Committee since its inception, ranging from the

coaches of the Royal Train to a dinner plate recently retrieved from the

wreck of the railway steamer SS /Seaford/, which sank in 1895'

 

The National Museum of Science and Industry is a family of museums which

includes the National Railway Museum, York, Locomotion: The National

Railway Museum at Shildon in County Durham, The National Media Museum,

Bradford, The Science Museum, London and The Science Museum, Swindon at

Wroughton.

 

For further information, please contact:

 

Neil Butters, Secretary, Railway Heritage Committee

(0117 372 8545; secretary@railwayheritage.org.uk )

 

Gemma Sneyd, Senior Press Officer, National Railway Museum

(01904 6862271; gemma.sneyd@nrm.org.uk )

[Ravenser]

An excellent initiative, and one that should be invaluable for future generations of researchers