The Signalling Record Society

The Society's Digital Archives

In 2010 the Society received a donation of digital copies of some weekly operating notices and signalling notices. These formed the nucleus of a Digital Archive and the Society has embarked on gradually digitising material held in the paper archive. Priority is being given to Weekly and Periodical Operating Notices as many of these were printed on poor quality paper which is now deteriorating. Other categories of material to receive early attention are Signalling Notices, especially where these are on poor quality paper, and General and Sectional Appendices.

The digital archive is stored on suitable hard drives in the care of the Digital Archivist and backed up locally. An additional back up to cloud storage in real-time provides an 'off-site' copy. A further 'off-site' copy is kept at the archive in Kenilworth and periodically refreshed; this copy can be consulted by visitors to the Archive using their own computer.

Click on this link to view our digital archive catalogue.

Guide Notes for Scanning Material

Our guide to scanning material and sending it to us can be read on the guide to scanning page.

Collecting Policy

In broad terms the collecting policy matches that of the archive at Kenilworth. However, as it is easier to expand the capacity of the digital archive than the physical one, the collecting policy is somewhat wider.

Wherever possible the digital copy will be the complete document. This is especially important with the Weekly Notices as information about changes of signal frame or locking is often only published in section B. There was no section C announcement because no change was visible to train crews! Weekly and Periodical Notices will be combined so far as possible into 'year sets'. This is intended to assist searching the files when the precise date of an event is unknown.

Parts of the Digital Archive are available for download immediately free of charge where the donor has specified this as a condition of the donation. Other parts are only available for download by members. The download links on the digital archive catalogue pages make it clear what is available by these means. Some items may be purchased by non-members as well as by members. These items are listed in our on-line Bookstall.

Files are variously in PDF, JPG TIF format, all of which are recognised international standards. If your browser won't read some of these there are plenty of free readers available from internet sources.

The archive files are often large - please bear in mind that they will take some time to download, especially if you are not using broadband. Because of problems with older browsers or out of date plug-ins, it is recommended that files be saved to your own hard drive before opening them to view the contents.

Contributions to the Digital Archive are always welcome. There is a guide to making digital copies here.