Press Office
New collection puts Museum in the picture
The National Railway Museum (NRM) in York has acquired a massive photographic archive stretching back some 80 years.
Containing over 200,000 images, the fascinating collection consists of the original pictures taken by the official photographic unit for British Rail, and its predecessor, the London & North Eastern Railway. The unit was based in York, and its brief was to photograph railway civil engineering projects big and small, along the East Coast Main Line and across much of the rail network in northern England..
After privatisation this invaluable archive went into the care of Jarvis plc, who together with BRB (Residuary) Ltd, the British Railway Board’s successor, are now kindly donating it to the National Collection. The pictures will be added to the already extensive photographic archive housed in the museum’s £4 million research centre, ‘Search Engine’.
This donation fills a gap in the National Collection due to its rare pictorial records of the LNER and BR Eastern Region, It includes images of major construction projects, such as the building of stations and bridges and the electrification of railway lines, together with special events and photographs recording the day-to-day operation of the railway.
Ed Bartholomew, the NRM’s Senior Curator, Conservation & Collections Management commented that:
“This is a significant addition to the NRM’s world-class archive, especially as many of these photographs can be matched to existing items in the collection. We are very much looking forward to rehousing this amazing collection in our continuously growing Search Engine facility.”
April 2008