NRS-15254 | Minutes of Railways Commissioners' Conferences

Full description

These minutes record the proceedings of the conferences of the Railway Commissioners for the Australian Colonies (later States), New Zealand, and representatives of the Australian Government. The meetings were held in cities throughout Australia and New Zealand.

The matters discussed included railway expansion, profitability, technological innovations, and future developments. Attempts were also made to develop cooperative strategies to aid the transportation of freight and passengers. The Minutes are accompanied by supporting documents from senior managers such as the Chief Traffic Officers, Chief Accountants, and Heads of Divisions which were presumably tables at the meetings.

From 1974 the minutes of "Other Special Conferences" meetings for managers, design, industrial, mechanical, and ratings officers plus Special Commissioners and the Dangerous Goods Sub-Committee are included in this series. The year 1974 also marks the beginning of indexing by both individual conference and subject.

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 R330. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as series R330 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.