One of the model railways at HMRS

On Saturday I gave a talk about the work of the Ballast Trust as part of the Archives, Artefacts, Amateurs and Academics workshop organised by the Business Archives Council and the Historical Model Railway Society.

It was a very interesting two days, very useful from our point of view to hear how other organisations manage and use technical records and has given me lots of things to think about.

There is a full write-up of the conference over on Turnip Rail (a blog written by PhD student David Turner about railway history).

One of the most interesting developments we heard about was the Transport Archive Register. This is an online register that aims to "describe archives containing railway and canal records which are not linked to national databases and which might otherwise escape notice. Local libraries, societies and individuals often have collections about which information is hard to find. Anyone is welcome to use the information provided and equally anyone can contribute."