Railway Records

[Family Guy]

Hi All,

I was informed some time ago when I first started the family history game, that the records for the railways had not been destroyed and that it was possible to access them to find out about people in that industry.

As a great number of my family appear to have worked there way up to Train drivers, I thought that I may find info on them in these records.  However, the person that told me this as left the area and as yet cannot be contacted...........any pointers would be nice

You know the sort of info I am after, name, number, wage etc etc.

Please help

Many Thanks

Family Guy 

[Valda]

This is The National Archives research guide for researching raily employees records and what The National Archives holds.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=124

This should link you to the pdf file but if it doesn't this The National Archives main site

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/default.asp

Click on research guides and scroll down to Railways: staff records

Regards

Valda

[mickgall]

Hi there

as a lot of your descendants were in the driving grades, you could try contacting the train drivers union A.S.L.E.F.
http://www.aslef.org.uk/
they should have archives.
As you've posted in Lancashire I'm assuming they all came from that area, so depending on the era, there were a number of different companies that operated there. From 1948 on-wards it would have come under the London Midland Region of British Rail but the staff records may be unavailable for viewing yet.
From 1923-1948 the main company in the area would have been the London Midland & Scottish Railway. You could try this link

http://www.lms-society.org.uk/

Before 1923 there were a number of smaller companies operating but the main three were the London & North Western Railway

http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/SHG/Data/index.php

The Midland Railway

http://webp1.mimas.ac.uk/~zzaascs/mrsoc/mrsoc.html

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
http://www.lyrs.org.uk/index.html

You could also try the Railway Ancestors site
http://www.railwayancestors.fsnet.co.uk/
although theres a joining fee.
Another source is through staff magazines and railway journals. The majority of these are kept at the National Rail Museum in York

http://www.nrm.org.uk/research/researchcentre.asp

Hope some of this helps

Mick