Railways have an enormous impact on our lives. A recent BBC programme claimed that railways made a bigger impact than the Internet. So it is important to record the story of our railways. That is why we are creating an archive of material about the Settle Carlisle Line. We have recently moved all our archives, and collection of small objects, to our own room at The Folly in Settle. We plan to put as much material as possible on-line. To discover what is already on-line visit http://www.settle-carlisle.co.uk/heritage/
We have just launched the Directory of Resources created by Nigel Mussett. This is a comprehensive listing of material about the Line including books, poetry, art as well as more obvious factual information. There is a separate list of images. You can view a pdf by clicking here. In future we plan to put a full catalogue of all our archives on-line.
We are having open days at The Folly when you can come and see the material we have. Do come along between 11 and 4 on any of these Saturdays: 3rd September, 1st October and 5th November.
Railway archives are held by the National Railway Museum in York and The National Archives at Kew. But many other organisations also hold archives. For example the Midland Railway Society has the biggest collection of material on the Midland Railway in Derby. Our focus is the period from the saving of the line in 1989 to the present day.
History starts today. By tomorrow, what happened today is history. So it is important to collect material today that tells the story of the Settle Carlisle Railway for future generations. For example, we are recording the buildings and the lineside equipment that is fast disappearing as our railways are modernized. You can find the Settle Carlisle Railway Conservation Area project, led by Mark Harvey, by clicking on http://www.foscl.org.uk/scrca-project.
The word ‘archive’ conjures up an image of dusty boxes on shelves. We do have boxes, and we do have shelves, but they are not dusty and they contain stories about real people who built the railway (including the navvies) and who worked on the railway (the railway companies kept very detailed records, a joy for family historians). Our aim is to bring these stories to life, and make them accessible.
If you have any questions about our archives, or material you would like to loan or donate, or if you want to get involved, then please email us: [email protected].
Bryan Gray
Chairman, Collections & Archives Committee