The Roy F Burrows Midland Collection Trust

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THE MIDLAND RAILWAY STUDY CENTRE

This is a joint venture between the Trust, the Midland Railway Society and Derby Museum & Art Gallery. It is located at

The Silk Mill
Derby's Museum of Industry & History
(formerly Derby Industrial Museum)

and was opened on 10 May 2004 (the 160th anniversary of the formation of the Midland Railway) by Paul Bunting Esq., then Managing Director of Midland Main Line.

It is the home to the vast majority of the Trust's collection items and the centre also contains Midland Railway and associated items from Derby Museum's own collection and those of the Midland Railway Society to form the largest and most comprehensive collection of Midland Railway memorabilia and paper ephemera in the United Kingdom available for public study and reference.

There are no charges for admission or use of the computer database, but it is necessary to make an appointment. Photocopying facilities are available at a small charge.

Items from all three of the partners' collections are being added progressively to the database of the Study Centre catalogue and over 27,000 records are now available. It has always been the aim to make catalogue information available on the internet, but this is several years away from achievement at the moment.

Some of the main classes of material on which cataloguing work has been completed are described in the following paragraphs.

With a few exceptions, all three-dimensional objects are now recorded on the database with an image. We will be taking steps to improve the quality of some images, in due course, by taking advantage of the improvement in digital technology which has occurred since 2002. Silver plate particularly was inherently difficult to photograph at that time with the equipment available to us.

The full range of both working and public timetables in the collection is now on the database, including Belfast & Northern Counties, Northern Counties Committee and London, Tilbury and Southend Railways, as well as the Midland itself. Our comprehensive sets of Acts of Parliament and accident reports are also listed and available.

A wide range of plans and drawings is fully available, including gradient diagrams, distance diagrams, two chain plans, signal box diagrams, signal layout plans, permanent way drawings, etc.

There is a comprehensive range of rule books (including some very early items) and working timetable appendices, together with a significant number of weekly notices of signal alterations as well as the "other" weekly notices of special / excursion trains etc.

Of the more prosaic ephemera, General Manager's Orders and Goods Manager's Circulars are fully listed.

Luggage, wagon and most parcel labels are now complete. Our Vice-Chairman, David Geldard, who is the acknowledged expert on pre-grouping tickets, has completed his prodigious work on assembling the unique presentation of Midland Railway, Joint Lines and London, Tilbury and Southend Railway tickets in a "stations" format based upon John Gough's well-known Midland Railway Chronology (published by the Railway and Canal Historical Society in 1989). Paper and season tickets, together with passes, are also now complete, as are Irish NCC tickets from the Midland era. David is now working on a complementary record of Midland Railway ticket types specifically for the Study Centre. Watch this space! Virtually all of the Trust's collection of publicity material is now on the database with a significant number of images included. This includes guide books, brochures, timetable cards and leaflets, as well as handbills and posters.

The Trust has not set out to collect joint line material particularly from the Midland & Great Northern and Somerset & Dorset lines (except for tickets), but it does have a reasonable collection of Severn & Wye joint material which is now fully catalogued. Our material from the Midland's constituent (and acquired) companies is also all on the database.

The work of cataloguing and photographing the contents of the Hotel Department Guard Books from the former Midland Grand Hotel, which are on permanent loan to us from London & Continental Stations and Property Ltd, is well under way. Although images have yet to be added to the database, over 1,850 records have been entered - about 85% of the total.

The Trust has an extensive collection of original records from Burton on Trent detailing staff appointments, promotions and wage increases from 1865 to 1908. These are now catalogued by date and provide a source of information regarding employees of the Midland Railway in Burton during the period mentioned.

In the near future, a considerable enhancement will be made to the Trust's postcard records. The gaps in our official postcard collection will be filled by copies provided by John Alsop, so that virtually a complete record of official Midland Railway postcards will be available in the Study Centre. John Alsop is the country's leading authority on railway postcards and he has, additionally, agreed to provide copies of his collection of original postcard views of Midland Railway and joint line stations together with copies of his photographs of Midland Railway accidents. When these additions are in place, the Study Centre will have one of the largest collections of pre 1923 photographs of Midland Railway subjects in the country - all available for study.

Trustees continue to allocate funds to cover the restoration of collection items - mainly cast iron so far. Our policy is to restore to Midland Railway standard those items which have been repainted since leaving their railway location (often in colours totally unrepresentative of any railway period). We do not normally restore the backs of cast iron. In the rare cases of an item which has never been touched since its Midland or LMS days, we leave well alone - caked grime and all!

For more information about the Centre, when it is open, and how to make an appointment, see www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk

Selection of Timetables and Booklets

ROY BURROWS IN READING ROOM

Click here to view more images from the Study Centre