Through History

All aboard for a tour of some beautiful drawings and historic photographs from the National Railway Museum

Treasures of the National Railway Museum

The first railway opened in Britain in 1825, revolutionising daily life by making transportation of goods, animals and people relatively quick and simple. By 1870 almost 22,000km of railway crisscrossed the country. Today, the railway is a part of daily life, with 1.8 billion journeys made in the UK every year. Of course, with such a rich history, over the years several institutions have been formed to celebrate and protect the heritage of the railways. In 1975, on the 150th anniversary of the UK’S first railroad, one of the most famous and respected, the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, opened its doors to the public.

Containing the world’s largest collection of railway-related objects and paraphernalia, from a 1976 Japanese bullet train to the stuffed

Railway Collecting Dog ‘Laddie’, the museum remains the top resource for the history of locomotive transport. One key part of the museum’s vast collection is its assortment of a million or so engineering drawings, now the subject of a new book, Railways: A History in Drawings. Here, we highlight some of them, as well a selection of photographs from the NRM’S collection.