Documents and publicity material
Rule books, safety booklets, holiday guides, war memorials and much more.
The Archives contains a wide range of documents that were typically produced by the railways in the course of their various operations, including their publicity. This ‘Documents’ collection is extremely large, and sorting and assessing work is ongoing, but some of the areas it covers includes:
- Rule books
- Safety booklets
- Rules for goods conveyance and waybills etc
- Holiday guides, brochures and leaflets
- War memorials and rolls of honour, and commemorative publications
- Documents relating to railway hotels and on-train catering
- Instructions and itineraries for Royal Trains.
We make no claim that our collection is comprehensive – we collect samples and examples, so you might not find every single edition of a particular rule book. However anyone interested in how the railways worked, and what they produced will almost certainly find something of use in this collection.
Recently added: The Forsythe Collection of Travel & Transport Ephemera. This massive collection contains publicity material from across the UK and overseas, and not just from railways – it also covers air, road and water transport as well, from the 1940s up to the 2000s. Work is currently ongoing to make this unique collection more easily accessible.
Search an online selection of our Documents Collection (use the search bar there to narrow your search).
For personal access to the NRM's archive collections, see Search Engine.