Listed below are some links to other railway studies and transport-related sites on the world wide web. This is a selective listing and makes no attempt to be comprehensive, but we hope you find it helpful and informative.

Please note that the IRS&TH has no control over web pages beyond its own site, and can accept no responsibility for the content of any sites linked to this page; nor does the inclusion of a link to a particular web site on this page indicate any form of endorsement on the part of the IRS.

The IRS&TH's two parent institutions

Centres of academic railway and transport studies

Railway and transport studies: general resources

Railway and transport studies: scholarly societies and journals

Railway and transport studies: museums and preservation

Railway and transport studies: educational resources

Today's railway and transport scene

A railway and transport miscellany

The IRS&TH's two parent institutions

The National Railway Museum - the largest railway museum in the world, responsible for the conservation and interpretation of the British national collection of historically significant railway vehicles and other artefacts. Contains an unrivalled collection of locomotives, rolling stock and other equipment, documents and records.

The National Railway Museum is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The other institutions comprising the NMSI are the Science Museum, London, and the National Media Museum, Bradford.

The University of York - a centre of excellence in research and teaching, with a well-organised and fast web presence. The IRS&TH is part of the University's Department of History. Useful information on railway studies resources in York can be found on the University Library's History Information Sources Page.

Centres of academic railway and transport studies

The IRS&TH was the first institutional member of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M), established in Eindhoven in November 2003 and rapidly becoming an important focus of scholarly activity.

The Railway Research Centre, Birmingham, delivers university research information and training to assist the rail industry in the complex technical, managerial and regulatory challenges of the future.

At the University of Leeds, the Institute for Transport Studies is one of the leading inter-disciplinary groups involved in teaching and research in transport studies in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Railway and transport studies: general resources

The Historical Model Railway Society is the senior society in Britain for the collection and exchange of information for historians and modellers of the railways of the British Isles. Offers an excellent selection of links and many other valuable and reliable resources for anyone - modeller or not - with an interest in British railway history.

For North American, and particularly US, railway history on the internet, rrhistorical.com is an excellent starting point. Contains links, articles, chronologies and much more.

A very comprehensive selection of railway links is offered by TrainNet International Railway Links - over 7,000 sites are listed. This may well be the largest railway links page on the net. For some of the finest railway-related web sites, take a look at the sites that have been awarded the TrainNet Web Gem Award.

Railway and transport studies: scholarly societies and journals

Association pour l'histoire des chemins de fer en France - a learned society dedicated to the history of French rail transport, and to the histories of the people who built, operate and use these railways. Its purpose is to explore all aspects of railway history - economic and financial, technical, social and cultural - in France and elsewhere in the world where French railways can be found.

Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles - a scholarly foundation established by the Spanish rail industry, responsible for maintaining a library and research centre and running a range of courses and cultural activities relating to the history of Spanish and Latin American railways and to the railways of the contemporary Hispanic world. The FFE also runs Spain's national railway museums in Madrid and in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Barcelona. This site tends to be rather slow, but the content is worth the wait.

The Railway and Canal Historical Society was founded in 1954 with the aim of bringing together all those interested in the history of transport, with particular reference to railways and waterways. Its main objects are 'to promote historical research and to raise the standard of published history.'

The Narrow Gauge Railway Society celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2001. The Society's fast and well-organised web site features extensive photo galleries, a detailed reference section including guides to the Society's own library holdings, a large links page, and much that is of interest to followers of full-size and miniature narrow gauge railways.

The Journal of Transport History is the leading international journal for transport history. This link takes you to the homepage of Manchester University Press, who publish the Journal of Transport History; follow the link to 'Journals' for information about the JTH.

Revista Ferroviária has been the leading Brazilian railway journal since it began publication in 1940. Revista Ferroviária's well-organized website has coverage of Brazilian and international railway news, details of conferences and trade events, and preserved and heritage railways (in Brazilian Portuguese only).

The web site of the Irish Railway Record Society contains much of interest to those studying Irish railway history, including sections of the Society's Journal and detailed coverage of current and historical Irish railway topics.

Railway and transport studies: museums and preservation

The London Transport Museum conserves, presents and interprets two hundred years of public transport in London. The LT Museum's web site is extraordinarily rich, offering a vast range of informative and well-presented content.

The National Tramway Museum - more than 50 trams are preserved and operated at this large open-air museum at Crich in Derbyshire. The Museum is also home to an excellent library and research collection relating to the history of tramways, street railways and urban transport generally across the world, and an extensive photographic collection.

The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft has the UK's largest collection of electric buses.

The National Maritime Museum is the national museum of British maritime heritage, located in Greenwich, south-east London. The NMM's website is a rich resource for maritime history on the web, and is an exemplar of how museums can use their web presence to extend their work into the community locally, nationally and globally. An excellent site.

The leading British motor museum is the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire, dedicated to collecting, conserving and exhibiting vehicles and other items relating to the history of motoring in Britain from 1895 to the present day.

The Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester is one of the country's foremost science and technology museums, with exhibits ranging from gas cookers to spacecraft. There is much of transport interest at the museum, including locomotives, road vehicles and aircraft.

The Coventry Transport Museum is located in one of the historic centres of the British motor industry, and seeks portray the contribution made by Coventry to the world's road transport. The Museum's collection of vehicles is one of the finest in the world and the largest in public ownership.

The Museum of Transport Glasgow holds a fine collection of Scottish-related artefacts, including an exceptional selection of public-transport vehicles from the city.

UK Heritage Railways - provides a comprehensive guide to all heritage railways, preserved locomotives, preservation societies and railway museums in the United Kingdom.

Pendon Indoor Model Village and Railways - an informative and well-illustrated site from this great British model railway centre. The famous Vale of White Horse and Dartmoor layouts depict the halcyon days of the Great Western Railway in settings created with an astonishing attention to detail and authenticity. Pendon is also home to John Ahern's pioneering 1930s Madder Valley Railway.

The National Rail Museum, New Delhi, founded in 1977, is the custodian of India's rich railway heritage.

The Deutsches Museum in Munich is one of the leading museums of science and technology in the world, and has extensive railway and transport collections.

Glasgow University Archive Service holds the records of such locomotive builders as Andrew Barclay Sons, North British Locomotive Company, Dubs Co, Neilson Co, and RY Pickering Co as well as other transport collections.

RailPosters is an independent consultancy specialising in railway art of any description, run by Beverley Cole, formerly curator of pictorial collections at the National Railway Museum.

Railway and transport studies: educational resources

The Industrial Revolution and the Railway System derives from a course taught by Professor Robert Schwartz of the History Department at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts. It includes a wide range of nineteenth-century opinion on the railways, articles and images from the Illustrated London News, some detailed data analysis of the effects of the railway in England and Wales from 1851 to 1914 using charts, maps and tables, and some impressive student research papers.

The Railways in the Nineteenth Century pages on the Spartacus Schoolnet site, intended as a resource for schools, offer an impressive survey of British railway history 1700-1900. Includes biographies of engineers, information about technological developments, details of railway towns, and an outline history of railway development.

One of the best historical resources on the internet is the wide-ranging and marvellous Victorian Web, which includes a fascinating selection of resources relating to Victorian railways, including historical essays and discussion of the railway in the writings of, among others, Dickens, Trollope and Carlyle.

Michael Wutz is Professor of English at Weber State University, Utah, and has extensive literary and cultural interests in railway history. The 'Tracks, Trains, Tremors' pages in his personal web site are a mine of information on topics in the cultural history of railways, and are well worth a visit.

Although still very much under construction The Railways Archive promises to be a useful source of on-line documentation relating to British railway history.

Today's railway and transport scene

Feel that National Rail still manage to do an even worse job than Railtrack when it comes to web-based timetable enquiries? Try Matthew Somerville's National Rail Enquiries interface!

The European Rail Travel Planner, maintained by Die Bahn, the German railway, is probably the best way of planning European-wide trips by train.

Book tickets on-line at RailEurope.

For advice on how to make that journey woldwide, and book, see The Man in Seat Sixty-One.

Railfaneurope.net - The European Railway Server is an extensive collection of information and links relating to European railways, for enthusiasts and travellers.

The World Bank offers a valuable collection of world-wide railway links in its 'transport: railways' section. Includes general resources, governmental sites, state and private railway sites and public railway information services.

UK Railways on the Net is the starting-point for information about contemporary British railways and the UK railway industry.

The Light Rail Transit Association brings together a wealth of information about tramways and light rail, past, present, and future, across the world. A very rich resource for anyone interested in transport history or contemporary transport issues, particularly in the field of urban transport.

Living Streets is a long-standing advocacy group for that much-neglected mode of transport, walking.

A railway and transport miscellany

It is our intention to include in this section links to pages of railway and transport interest which, while perhaps not falling into any of the main categories above, deserve attention for the quality of their presentation and content, their scholarly nature, their unique character, or their exceptional contribution to serious railway and transport studies. If you have a site that you would like us to include, or would like to propose a site for inclusion in this section, please let us know by e-mailing us on cd11@york.ac.uk.

Chelsham Bus Garage
A site devoted to the history of a Surrey bus garage may not sound the most interesting or rewarding thing you could point your browser at, but think again! This is undoubtedly one of the best transport history sites on the world wide web. Chelsham Bus Garage opened in 1925 and closed in 1990, and there is hardly an aspect of its history over those 75 years that is not featured in Alan Edwards's elegant, richly illustrated and engrossing site: the routes, the vehicles, the staff, even the garage canteen. Pay Chelsham Bus Garage a visit, you won't regret it.

Manet's 'The Railway'
The United States' National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has a large number of important impressionist paintings in its collections. Among them is 'The Railway' by Edouard Manet (1832-83), painted in 1872-3, which is set in the area around the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The Gallery offers a fascinating insight into this picture in Manet's 'The Railway': an in-depth study, which includes discussion of the artist and the social, cultural and artistic context of his work as well as a detailed examination of the painting itself. Very commendably, this feature is available in two versions to suit simple or more advanced browsers.

The Railway Children
The Railway Children is a charity devoted to helping street children, whose lives on the streets of the world's big cities often begin at railway stations. The Railway Children charity offers a point of contact to these vulnerable children, and operates shelters where they can received the protection and support they need. Their clear and straightforward web site gives information about their work and offers you the chance to help.

The Bullet Train
In July 2002 the National Railway Museum here in York welcomed a Series 0 Japanese Bullet Train, or Shinkansen, to its collection, the first ever to be exhibited outside Japan. The Shinkansen network pioneered regular high-speed rail services and remains one of the most dramatic and successful examples of modern railway technology in the world. There are many sites dealing with the Shinkansen on the web, but the best place to start is undoubtedly byun byun Shinkansen. This excellent resource contains all you need to know about the Shinkansen, including route maps, details of services, Shinkansen types and the technology of the network, the history of the Bullet Trains, latest news, articles and bibliographies, preservation information, and a very comprehensive links page. This is the Shinkansen web site - packed with detail, informative, up-to-date, well-designed, devoid of gimmicks, fast and uncluttered. (For details of the NRM's Bullet Train, visit the NRM's main site and follow the link to 'News'.)

War Department Light Railways
One of the lesser-known aspects of the Great War of 1914-18 is the extensive use made by the combatants of networks of narrow-gauge military railways, in military installations, behind the lines and at the front itself. War Department Light Railways is a very informative and wide-ranging site which aims to illuminate this important but obscure aspect of twentieth-century military and railway history. The site includes a general history of military light railways in World War I, details of locomotives and rolling stock, a very full section devoted to publications and research, information on the post-war history of some of these networks and their equipment, and details of preservation. Please do pay a visit to this clear, well-organised and well-illustrated site.

Railway women in wartime
Helena Wojtczak's Railway Women in Wartime site devotes much-needed attention to the role of women in working on the railways during the two world wars (and also points out that women railway workers are not a purely wartime phenomenon). The site includes facts and figures, quotations from contemporary sources, and many fascinating photographs, revealing the vast range of work done by women on the railways and providing an important corrective to views of the railway as a male-dominated world. This well-organized and elegant site consitutes an important resource for (among others) railway historians, social historians and scholars in labour and women's studies, as well as providing recognition for the thousands of women workers on the railways whose labours have ensured that the railways could 'carry on'.

The railways at war
Neil Worthington's Junction 'X' Home Page reproduces the full script of a second world war BBC propaganda broadcast about the railways' war effort, which was published as a booklet in 1944. The material is fascinating in its own right, and is very simply and effectively presented. A very useful resource, of interest to historians of the second world war, railway historians and students of propaganda, and well worth a visit.

Danger on the line - railway accidents railway safety
An exceptionally valuable railway site is Danger Ahead! - Historic Railway Disasters - if you are interested in railway safety and railway accidents, past and present, this is the site for you. There are detailed discussions of significant railway accidents since the early days of rail travel, many with pictures, analysis of recent railway mishaps throughout the world, and an up-to-the-minute news service to keep you informed about accidents and rail safety issues on the contemporary railway, worldwide, and much more.

The railways of Portugal
Contemporary railway operations are now a big presence on the internet. Among European railway web sites, the Caminho de Ferro Portugueses (CP - Portuguese Railways) site is particularly elegant and well-designed. Not only does it contain the timetable and service information you would expect, it also has a chronology of the history of railways in Portugal (an English-language version is available) and information about Portugal's railway museums. Portuguese transport history, like Portuguese history generally, is too little-known beyond Portugal, and CP are to be commended for trying in a small way to put that right. If you are interested in Portuguese railways, the Associaçao Portuguesa dos Amigos do Caminho de Ferro (Portuguese Assocation of Friends of the Railway) is also well worth a visit; contains useful links, pages on museums, and a brief history of Portuguese railways.

The Midland Railway
The Midland Railway Society exists to bring together all those interested in the Midland Railway, and their web site is not only an attractively-presented and comprehensive introduction to the Society's activities but also constitutes an impressive internet railway history resource in its own right. The site offers a wealth of material relating to the history of the Midland Railway, including an account of the railway's history, a chronology, detailed bibliographies and an excellent collection of links to archives and other resources for serious historical study. An admirable, informative and enjoyable site, and one that takes serious railway history seriously.

Pictures from Punch: the Victorian railway
The Victorian age is conventionally seen as 'the railway age'; but how did the Victorians themselves see the machine that transformed their world in so many ways? One important soure of evidence is the many cartoons relating to the railways that appeared in Punch during the Victorian era. Some particularly interesting railway cartoons from Punch have been published on the web in excellent high-resolution scans by Sue McNaughton on her 'Pictures from Punch' pages. An effective presentation of a fascinating and rich body of visual evidence for nineteenth-century perceptions of the railway.

Ohio Western Railway Historical Society
This is one of the best North American railway historical sites, packed with elegantly and clearly presented information about the railway history and heritage of the New York, Ontario Western, and other railways of the region between New Jersey and Lake Ontario. There is a vast wealth here of articles and pictures ranging from accounts of work on the railway to drawings and descriptions of railway structures. An excellent historical resource which takes a broad view, dealing with social and cultural history as well as technical and operational matters; a demonstration of how good such railway history and heritage sites can be. Pay a visit to the Ontario Western Railway Historical Society.

Robert Forsythe's home page
Robert Forsythe is a transport and industrial heritage historian and consultant; he presented a paper on collecting railway ephemera at the IRS on 13 December 2000. His home page is a mine of information about projects he has been involved in and is currently undertaking in heritage consultancy, the study of railway publicity, timetable collecting and cataloguing, and model railway history. There are also some fascinating and novel insights into the life and work of the poet W. H. Auden, with reference to his railway interests: 'Auden could have been a splendid member of the Branch Line Society or the Industrial Railway Society but since from 1939 much of his life was spent in America those opportunities did not arise'. Well worth a visit.