The Signalling Record Society

Guide to the Railway Archive Reference System “RailRef”

The purpose of this guide is to explain the RailRef System and provide access to the detailed information contained within it.

The Line Codes used in the system will also be found in the Signal Box Registers published by the Society and in the Archive Indexes. Elsewhere on the web site the Line Codes are being used to positively identify locations mentioned on the In Print pages to a railway company and line of route which will assist where names are repeated in different places. It is anticipated that their use will eventually extend to most, if not all, the Society's publications.

The various pages comprising this section of the web site are very much "work in progress" with additional information being added as time permits. This particularly applies to the county lists of industrial and private lines where the work of listing only started in September 2011. The numbered lists set out by railway operating company are unlikely to experience any further renumbering of Line Codes for lines where signalling is provided although some branch lines remain to be discovered and added.

It is hoped that researchers will use the system and contribute the relevant results of their research so that the information can be expanded to the benefit of all. Contributions and corrections to and comments about these pages are welcomed and should be sent by email to the webmaster who will be pleased to receive them.

More Information about RailRef

To find out more about the scope of the RailRef system or how a RailRef code is constructed click on the appropriate second line menu at the top of the page. There is also a link there to find out more about the Engineers' Line Reference system used by the railway industry.

Railway Company Two Letter Codes

Each two letter code is a link to the detail list for the company or companies named. Each of the pages will open in a new window.

Industrial and Private Lines

This section should be regarded as “Work in Progress”. The webmaster will welcome additional information for the pages in this section.

Included here are the Industrial and Private lines, effectively the lines of any company or organisation that has not been allocated a two letter code. These lists are in their infancy and far from complete.

A separate page will eventually exist for each historic county or island group. Each page opens in a new window. Within each page lines are arranged in sequence based on the RailRef Line Code of the line to which they were attached. Lines that were not connected to the national network appear at the end of the page.

We have yet to find a satisfactory explanation as to why some private lines which never formed part of British Rail have acquired Engineer's Line References although one possibility is that BR or its predecessors maintained the line under contract to the owner; and another is being lumbered (inherited?) with infrastructure liabilities.

Pages have so far been created for:

English Counties

Irish Counties

C Connaught,  L Leinster,  M Munster,  U Ulster

Scottish Counties

Welsh Counties

Off-Shore Islands