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The Railway & Canal Historical Society has a number of Special Interest Groups, membership of which is freely open to all members of the main Society.
In almost every part of Britain horse-drawn railways and tramroads were in existence well before the arrival of the locomotive railway. They were particularly common in upland areas such as south Wales and Northumbria and even today there are often substantial remains to be seen. Teasing out the history of these lines involves a fascinating combination of field work, research in record offices and close examination of maps, which appeals greatly to a number of members of The Railway & Canal Historical Society.
The Early Railways Group (formerly known as the Tramroads Group) was created for the benefit of those members who share this interest. Because membership is so widely scattered, the chief way in which it can operate is by distribution of Occasional Papers. These can include longer studies of tramroad topics, snippets of information, reproductions of historical documents, reports on work in hand or requests for information. 200 papers have been circulated (as at September 2009).
A specimen of an Early Railway Group paper can be seen here.
The primary aim of the Group is the exchange of information among members by the periodic despatch (thrice annually) to members of a Newsletter, Occasional Papers (written by members and others, and in some cases to be regarded as possible drafts of papers for the Society’s Journal) and other written material concerning the history of roads and of road transport of all kinds.
An Index of RTG Papers is available in the Members Only section of this website. Requests for copies of any of the papers should be sent to the Group Coordinator.
The primary aim of the Group is the exchange of information among members by the periodic despatch (about twice annually) to members of a Newsletter, Occasional Papers (written by members and others and in some cases to be regarded as possible drafts of papers for the Society’s Journal) and other written material concerning the history of aviation.
An Index of RTG Papers is available in the Members Only section of this website. Requests for copies of any of these papers should be sent to the Group Coordinator.
The Railway & Canal Historical Society’s Railway Chronology Group seeks to bring together members interested in producing databases of railway Acts, line and station opening and closing dates, station renamings, etc, with a view to eventual publication. A regular Newsletter is issued to members which includes both full-length articles and listings and also shorter contributions in the form of Notes and Queries. Requests for copies of any of the papers should be sent to the Group Coordinator.
The aim of this Group is to foster the production of papers for the Society’s Journal and elsewhere, by assisting members engaged in researching inland waterway history, and by encouraging those who are thinking of embarking for the first time on research and writing in this field. The Group Co-ordinator circulates items as they are received to those Group members for whom an e-mail address is known, and the Group Distribution Officer periodically distributes a ‘paper mailing’ to all Group members. Items may include:
• Location of sources for research – ideas for research – aids to research.
• Occasional Papers, generally on ‘work in progress’ or rehearsals of papers prior to their being offered for publication.
• Reprints of obscure published items that may inspire further research.
• Notes, queries, and replies.
The Docks & Shipping Group is now incorporated within this Group, and members are invited to submit items in this field too. An Index of WHRG Papers is available in the Members Only section of this website. For some examples see our sample WHRG Paper.
This is a new Group intended to encourage interest in the period since the 1940s across the transport modes. This is an era which, in many cases, has seen nationalisation and denationalisation, modernisation and increased awareness of heritage, worthy of putting on the record.
Although pipelines do not have the immediate visual attraction of other forms of transport and are therefore a minority interest in themselves, they have had a considerable impact on the history of other transport modes by reason of the competition they have presented. Besides the work of researching pipeline history as a subject in itself, the Group is performing a useful function in making information on intermodal competition available to those engaged in researching other modes of transport. The Group has recently enlarged its scope to include Materials Handling, another subject which has a bearing on intermodal competition, but which is also of great intrinsic interest. The Group publishes Notes, Queries, Sources and Occasional Papers in its Newsletters and welcomes contributors.
TRAP is 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.
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.
For further information contact the Group Coordinator
For further details of all Groups contact The Railway & Canal Historical Society.