British Transport Historical Records: Maps, Plans and Surveys of British Railways,...

RAIL 1031

1808-1964

This series is a collection of maps and plans gathered together by the staff who supervised the British Transport Historical Records. It includes maps and plans of railways and canals, many produced by commercial map publishers. These are mainly 'general' maps, not maps of individual lines or the lines of a single railway company. Most of them cover relatively large areas and many show the whole of Great Britain or the whole of England and Wales.

The information the catalogue entries for this series was enhanced in 2012 drawing on catalogue descriptions made by the editor Mr P D Roos in the early 1990s.

Many of the series of records of individual companies, as well as those of the Railway Clearing House, committees and commissions etc contain maps and plans. There are also numerous maps of railways among the records of the Ministry of Transport, the Home Office, the War Office, the Welsh Office, and other departments.

MPS 3

Public Record(s)

English

122 flat sheets, portfolios, rolls and volumes

Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Topics

Railways

Trade and commerce

Maps and plans

This series is one of nine artificially created accumulations of maps, plans and surveys gathered together by the staff who supervised the historical records of the British Transport Commission. Formerly held at the British Transport Historical Records repository at Porchester Road, they were transferred to the custody of the Public Record Office in 1972.

Under the Transport Act 1947 the railways, canals, long-distance road haulage and various other types of transport were acquired by the State and operated by the British Transport Commission. The Commission was responsible to the Ministry of Transport for general transport policy, which it exercised principally through financial control of executive bodies set up to manage specific sections of the industry under schemes of delegation. Details of these executive bodies are set out in PRO Current Guide part 1, 629/1/1; copies of the Guide are available in the reading rooms at The National Archives.