Unfortunately, the Railways Archive cannot help you with your genealogical (family history) research - it simply isn't that kind of archive. We do not hold railway staff records, or records relating to accidents in the workplace. We only hold train accident reports, i.e. those relating to trains colliding, derailing or misbehaving in some other way. These accident reports do not usually mention the names of those killed or injured.

So if your great-grandfather lost a big toe to a coal train in 1864, I'm afraid you won’t find any answers here.

Every week, we receive numerous requests from people researching their family history. With regret, we do not reply to them.

This may seem unfair, but the reality is, we do not have the time or resources to do so. The Archive is a volunteer project, run by individuals in their spare time. If we answer one genealogy request, we have to answer them all. If we did this, there would be no time for the core purpose of the archive, which is scanning, collating and publishing accident reports and other key documents. As you can imagine, this is a time-consuming process.

Various other online resources may be able to help you, and these are detailed on our research tools page.

If you have taken the time to read this, we thank you for your understanding. If you have sent an email to us regarding genealogical information, we hope you will understand why we have not answered.

- The Archivist