This post is one of a series exploring how the same source might be approached in different ways by different types of researcher, so we can better understand each other and work together more easily. There’s an introduction to this, and the associated posts like this one, here. ‘Those who cannot remember the past […]
Archive | Useable past
Project into practice
In this post, we’re delighted to welcome guest author Michael Davis. Michael volunteers in a number of railway-related ways, as becomes clear in his post – including through the National Railway Museum, with our project. Importantly, he’s been able to make connections between our paper-based work and his experiences volunteering on heritage railways: excellent! We’ve […]
3 weeks, 3 audiences
October, it turns out, has been a busy month for us. Over the course of 3 weeks we’ve participated in events involving 3 of our key target audiences: the rail industry, family historians and academics. By way of a project update, this blog post summarises a few of the aspects of each of the events. […]
Accident Investigators – 2019
In our project we’re used to looking at the reports produced by the accident investigators of 100 or so years ago (see this blog post, for example), and we’re keen to see how what they contain they might be useful today. But generally we’re dealing only with the printed reports of the investigation: what we […]
Rail Safety Week 2019
This week is Rail Safety Week 2019, an industry-led initiative working to improve safety for everyone in rail, whether passenger, worker or more. Everything we can do day-to-day to make a difference is helpful, but it’s great to see a dedicated period to really focus minds. There’s all sorts going on during Rail Safety Week, […]
Remembering the Dead, Fighting for the Living: Workers’ Memorial Day
28 April is Workers’ Memorial Day – an important occasion for us to stop and think about all those who have died, been injured or made unwell as a result of work over the years. For our project it is particularly pertinent, given we’re so closely focused on the ways in which work has had […]
A trip to the ROC – worker safety 2017
One of the aims – and hopes – of the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project was to see if we could contribute to a ‘useable past’: that is, not just creating a useful resource for people interested in the past, but also seeing if the current railway industry might be able to make use […]
