"The Midland Railway Study Centre has something about most things, but rarely everything about anything"

This quote is a succinct characterisation of collections held by the Midland Railway Study Centre. Anybody with a Midland Railway related subject to research will always find it worth a visit, with little chance of going away having had a totally wasted time. We can't always promise to find material on a specific subject, but there will generally be something of interest on a related topic to look at.

The Study Centre's Reading Room regularly witnesses very knowledgeable people gasp in delight as a previously unknown fact comes to light,  and that is always a rewarding to observe.

---

Searching the Study Centre Catalogue

The on-line catalogue is available for visitors to the web site to use.

---

One of the greatest strengths of the Study Centre is its policy to combine documentary material and objects in one place. The normal division between these two is essentially an artificial and traditional one (i.e. archives v. museums), whereas the only real consideration is that of conservation and storage. The Study Centre addresses this by having separate areas for housing different materials, and by having a range of relevant expertise on tap. Documents and objects have equal importance as material evidence. The Study Centre enables them to be accessed by users in one place and, most importantly, to be used in conjunction with each other

From  Timetables to Tickets,  Accident Reports to Acts of Parliament, Plans to Pamphlets, Rule Books and Rate Books, Post Cards to Posters... the Midland Railway Study Centre adds up to the largest publicly accessible Midland Railway collection anywhere:

Cataloguing the collection is an ongoing task, although the end is in sight. Meanwhile, the catalogue as it stands contains details of most of the holdings. The database is available on computers in the reading room, providing a comprehensive search facility. In 2010 the catalogue "went live" on this web site - though regrettably we are unable to serve the thumbnail images associated with each entry.

The Roy F. Burrows Midland Collection Trust Web Site has an expanding Gallery of photographs illustrating objects in the collection.

Photocopying facilities are available to help visitors record information for their research. In order to protect the collection from potential harm, this facility is limited to documents that are no larger than A3. In order to record larger items, or indeed if preferred for smaller documents, visitors can bring a digital camera into the Study Centre, so long as the flash is disabled.

Not sure about 'photographing' instead of 'photocopying'? Follow this link to see an example of a document in the collection recorded by a digital camera.

The Roy F Burrows Midland Collection Trust has amassed a substantial number of Midland Railway related photographs. However, enquires and requests for copies are dealt with by the Kidderminster Railway Museum, who have a well established and highly renowned system for this. Even though we are not directly involved with the RFBMCT photograph collection, they are included in the Study Centre's database, so visitors will be able to browse thumbnail images of the collection.

Details of the Signalling Plans of the Roy F. Burrows Midland Collection contained within the Study Centre can be found at this link.

Weekly Notices and Signalling Notices in the collection are listed here.

Follow this link to view a page about Permanent Way drawings within the collections.

If you are interested in the first aid and ambulance work of the Midland Railway, this document explains more.