The Railway

The chances of you having a Victorian relative who worked on the railways is pretty high.
Railways were THE growth industry of the mid-late nineteenth century with even tiny villages being connected to the ever-increasing rail network.

The North West was at the centre of this burgeoning industry with the Rainhill trials, the Liverpool-Manchester railway and the huge amount of construction work in and around Liverpool.

Porters, platelayers, signalmen, guards, drivers, wheeltappers, coach builders, drivers, firemen, engineers . . . there was a plethora of occupations connected with the railways. And of course there were the people who built them - thousands of (mainly Irish) navvies laid mile upon mile of track at an astonishing speed. The pace of change must have been truly amazing for people who had been born in the eighteenth century. The sight of a locomotive charging through the countryside at (then) unimaginable speeds, linking towns within hours, must have been truly mind-blowing.

There are some very useful on-line resources and many publications which can help you track your railway ancestors. However, there is no national database of records and where they survive, staff records will be found in local or society collections.

You can start your research at http://www.railwayancestors.org.uk/