NRS-15262 | Minutes of the Permanent Way [later Way and Works Branch] Officers' Conferences

Full description

This series contains the minutes of proceedings of conferences held by the branches responsible for the inspection and maintenance of the permanent way which included permanent railway lines, bridges and buildings.

Conferences were usually held monthly. Due to administrative change within the Department, the conferences underwent a series of name changes:
* Permanent way officers’ conferences (1889 - 26 February 1930),
* Way and works officers’ conference (26 March 1930 - 30 April 1930),
* Civil engineering officers’ conference (28 May 1930 - 26 February 1932),
* Way & works officers’ conference (27 May 1932 - 21 November 1968).

The amount of detail varies greatly with early volumes providing brief details of reports submitted to way-officers by engineers. Several of these early volumes overlap and contain duplicate material, while some later volumes provide far more detailed information.

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 R18. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as series R18 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.