NRS-16401 | Historical Notes and References

Full description

These are historical notes and reference material about the construction of railway lines, associated facilities and information about events in New South Wales railway history. The following information can be found in these records: sketches, diagrams, maps and photographs; trial surveys and survey reports; letters and petitions; owners of land through which the railway was to pass; building specifications; curve and gradients; track descriptions and layout; opening dates of track sections; contracts and contractors; electrification; timetables; loadtables; histories of lines and stations; deviations; Parliamentary reports; Select Committee reports; Acts; Hansard and Annual Report extracts.

The majority of this material was written or compiled from 1969 from railway records and other sources by the former Archives Officer, Mr John Forsyth, and later staff (though the contents date of the actual items commences in 1858). The material largely comprises either typed or photocopied booklets with some published material. A small amount of material was compiled by railway officers in the course of their duties and forwarded to Archives for reference use: items such as station origins; tramway data and locomotives in service.


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. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as part of series R340 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.