Caledonian Railway Staff List - updated September 2023

The latest version of the  database listing any Caledonian Railway staff identified through research has now been uploaded to the website - now containing over 30,000 entries.

This is another significant increase from the 29,000 records in the version uploaded in April 2023, and is driven by further research from the valuation rolls.   Previously we had used these to identify the Station Master living at stations but this further research identified that the Caledonian Railway owned considerable rentable property, which is quite extensive in places such as Motherwell, Carstairs, Coatbridge, etc. including all Railway trades as well as Drivers and Fireman and Guards.  This chance discovery has resulted in a significant number of additional entries to our list - which can downloaded from the Staff Records page.

The Valuation Rolls can be found on the Scotland's People website - enter "Caledonian Railway" in Valuation Rolls to list all the Property owned by the Company.

The Railways of Stirling

The latest publication from the Association, The Railways of Stirling, is now available to purchase.

The late Donald Peddie spent many years assembling information for this book using his expert local knowledge and thorough research of local and national archives. All aspects of the history of the station and the surrounding facilities are covered. It is a fitting tribute to his memory.

£30.00

Caledonian Railway Miscellany

The author, Michael Dunn, has spent the last ten years researching material for this book and amassing a large number of photographs and information to illustrate all aspects of the Caledonian Railway.  The book takes the reader beyond the well-known photographs of the Caley’s engines and trains into less familiar corners, conveying some impression of the lives of those who worked for this major transport undertaking.

£44.95

Montague Smith's Scottish Railway Album 1927-1964

The late Montague Smith was a Scottish railway enthusiast who devoted much of his life to a study of the steam locomotive. He was an acknowledged authority on many aspects of locomotive design and also a well qualified photographer. Recently published by Black Dwarf Lightmoor this album features a selection of Montague Smith's photographs including many locomotives of Caledonian Railway origin.

£18.00

Dundee & Arbroath Railway

Published by the Caledonian Railway Association and Lightmoor Press, The Dundee & Abroath Railway tells the story of the line which remains in use today as part of the East Coast Mainline having been operated jointly by the Caledonian Railway and North British Railway and their successors.  The book will be launched at Model Rail Scotland in February 2023 and is available now for pre-order.

£40.00

Archive Catalogue

The catalogue of the delights in our Archives is amended twice a year, and the edition for December 2022 is now published. It can be accessed on-line by clicking on “Archives” in the headings across our Home page. A pdf version may be downloaded here.

An interesting addition is a collection of the papers of Tom Hamilton, who started on the railway in 1924 at Forfar. Though clearly he just  missed being a Caledonian employee he worked at places which had hardly changed, including a spell as Traffic Inspector at St Rollox and Scotstoun, before becoming Yard Inspector at Inverness during the war. The main part of the collection contains the text for an unpublished book on his railway career.  He explains a wide variety of railway operating practices and  topics which took his fancy, together with a large amount of secondary research material on Perth, Newtyle, Dundee, Arbroath, Comrie.

Sadly, it has not been possible to digitalise Tom’s material, but members and visitors are reminded, following a great deal of work,  many old documents from our archives are digitalise and are downloadable from the Shop area in our website. 

Physical visits to our Archives,  held on our behalf by the Glasgow University Archive and Special Collections at Thurso Street, are still a bit restricted in the number of opening days in the week, but they are accessible and the staff are as always helpful.“     

Email library-asc@glasgow.ac.uk with any questions or to make an appointment.

Caledonian Railway Documents and TTL Archive

Recent updates to the shop have allowed the Caledonian Railway Company documents previously produced by the Association as printed copies to be available to purchase as downloadable pdfs from the website. The pdf file format allows the text of the documents to be searched.

Details of the full range of Company documents, which includes Working and Public Timetables, operational documents, diagram books and results of previous research including transcripts of handwritten documents and registers are available at the shop CR Documents page.  The documents include the Appendix to the 1895 Working Timetable which has not been available before and contains a wealth of detail on the operations of the Caledonian Railway at that time - everything from Ambulance Appliances to Whistles Codes for Engines.

The shop will automatically apply members pricing for logged in users. This requires members to login to the website using the Registration link above. Please note that this is a separate log-in from that used currently for the Forum. As there is a manual check against the membership records before your website membership, and the reduced pricing, will be activated it is worth registering now to avoid any future delays.

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