RWLDproject
Member
Hopefully of interest to this forum - the 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project.
We're a volunteer-driven project, looking at accidents to British & Irish railway employees between c.1890 and 1939. We're making freely available details of staff accidents that were investigated by the state, railway companies and trades unions. Our volunteers are transcribing or summarising accounts of accidents that were produced at the time - usually they're difficult to access (they're not found on the RailwaysArchive, for example) - so this is an important step in making more people aware of the potential for these sources.
They tell us about working practices on the railways and about what staff were actually doing in practice, as well as about the people involved and what became of them.
So far (Jan 2020) we've a database of around 6,500 cases, but with around 20,000 cases being checked for quality control before going public; and an estimated 45,000 further cases to come in the future.
You can find it all at: www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk
We also feature a weekly blog, looking at some of the cases and the issues they raise, or putting the individual in their wider context. We run an active Twitter account, too: @RWLDproject
Do have a look and let us know what you think! Please feel free to spread the word - including letting us know where we should be getting word out - as we really want people to make use of the resources we're putting together.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum (NRM) and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC), working with The National Archives of the UK (TNA).
Last but not least - we'd like to recognise and thank the volunteer teams at the NRM, MRC and TNA who have taken on the massive task of transcribing and summarising the original sources. They've done fabulous work, and it wouldn't be possible without them!
We're a volunteer-driven project, looking at accidents to British & Irish railway employees between c.1890 and 1939. We're making freely available details of staff accidents that were investigated by the state, railway companies and trades unions. Our volunteers are transcribing or summarising accounts of accidents that were produced at the time - usually they're difficult to access (they're not found on the RailwaysArchive, for example) - so this is an important step in making more people aware of the potential for these sources.
They tell us about working practices on the railways and about what staff were actually doing in practice, as well as about the people involved and what became of them.
So far (Jan 2020) we've a database of around 6,500 cases, but with around 20,000 cases being checked for quality control before going public; and an estimated 45,000 further cases to come in the future.
You can find it all at: www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk
We also feature a weekly blog, looking at some of the cases and the issues they raise, or putting the individual in their wider context. We run an active Twitter account, too: @RWLDproject
Do have a look and let us know what you think! Please feel free to spread the word - including letting us know where we should be getting word out - as we really want people to make use of the resources we're putting together.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum (NRM) and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC), working with The National Archives of the UK (TNA).
Last but not least - we'd like to recognise and thank the volunteer teams at the NRM, MRC and TNA who have taken on the massive task of transcribing and summarising the original sources. They've done fabulous work, and it wouldn't be possible without them!