Railways Staff Database

Welcome to Railways Staff Registers Online

Cheshire and Chester Archives holds 17 staff registers of 4 former railway companies:
Cambrian Railway
Great Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
London and North Western and Great Western Joint Railway

The registers cover staff working over a large area of the North West including western Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and nine counties in North and mid Wales. They do not include stations in the east of Cheshire, although a database of the Crewe works registers deposited at the Cheshire Record Office is now available. Further advice on the location of railway staff records can be found on the National Archives' website.

The registers provide a summary of an employee’s career, the actual details varying slightly between registers. The registers cover the period c. 1869 when the first register was compiled, to c 1950 although no one company’s registers cover this whole period.

Job grades included are administrative and station-operating staff - superintendents, clerks, agents, station masters, porters, ticket examiners, left-luggage office staff and signalmen. Seamen working on the river Mersey at Birkenhead as masters, mates and firemen and women working mainly as waiting room attendants, gatekeepers and cleaners are included.

Engine drivers and stokers (firemen) belonged to different departments and are not included in these registers. The index contains around 25,000 entries.

It contains these fields:

Employee’s name - This is entered as Smith, John
Location - Usually the station
Job Grade
Date of appointment - This date is usually the start of service, not necessarily the date of promotion.
Volume - The reference number of the volume containing the information
Page

There is usually more information in the register and copies can be ordered via the Search and Shop page. Please quote the volume number and page and include your payment with any order.