NRS-15288 | Merchandise and livestock rates books

Full description

The volumes which form this series set out all of the necessary information for dealing with merchandise and livestock transported by rail. The general conditions and regulations for freight cartage are outlined along with merchandise classes, freight forwarding rules, mileage rates, wagon and locomotive rates, and returned empties charges.

There are also specific instructions for the conveyance of explosives and dangerous goods. There is a list of inland towns and their corresponding railway station, railway platforms and sidings requiring consignment notes, plus all related railway stations and collieries.

In some instances two copies of certain volumes are present, the second copy is either an annotated volume or an updated edition. There are also addendum volumes to some first editions. A number of the volumes have railway by-laws and New South Wales Government Gazette entries pasted into them. In the last decade of this series copies of Trackfast correspondence covering "conveyance of cargo prices" appear.

Custody History

From 1955 until 2000 the State Rail Authority of New South Wales maintained an ‘in house archives’ consisting of the archival records of the Authority, its predecessor agencies and the private railway companies taken over by the government. The date ranges of the records were from 1849 until 2000. When the decision was made to close the ‘State Rail Archives’ the parts of the collection that were required as State archives were transferred to the State Records Authority of NSW. Those record series were incorporated into the State Records series system of archives control and were re-numbered.

This series was formerly part of the State Rail Archives collection where it was identified as series R66. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as series R66 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.