National Railway Museum Archives and Drawings

[jbanfie]

Hi All,

I wondered if anyone had any experience of obtaining copies of locomotive drawings from the National Railway Musuem?

I note from the web site that they have temporarily closed the copying facility but it is due to start again with the opening of "Search Engine" in November.

Has anyone successfully used the NRM in such a way?

Specifically, I'd rather like to be able to get complete drawing sets for Hunslet locomotives, and then work them to seven and a quarter. Now I don't know if all the Hunslet drawings are at the NRM or somewhere else, or no longer exist?

I'd be very grateful if anyone has any knowledge.

Cheers

Jon

[Myford Matt]

I tried back in August and was politely told to wait...

November sounds hopeful. Please keep us posted

Cheers

Matt

[Laurie_B]

I've purchased a few prints from the NRM Copy Drawings service over the years.As Myford Matt says,the service is temporarily suspended.
The main drawing lists were compiled by Jim Russell back in the 1970's as a joint BR/OPC venture,and these lists cover the 'Big Four' and some of their constituent companies.
Since then the NRM has added lists of drawings for Swindon,Derby Doncaster etc which largely cover the BR Standard locos.
You could have a look in www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and
www.a2a.org.uk/ as there are drawing references there.
Not sure the NRM might actually have that many Hunslet drawings.I might be wrong but is there a Hunslet museum?Alternatively you could approach L.H.Group Services/Statfold Barn Railway (near Tamworth),who have recently built new Hunslet steam locomotives and should have some relevant drawings.Hope this is of help.

[barryc]

Should you need to 'Rework' some drawings by converting to CAD let me know via PM, I might be able to help.
Cheers
Barry

[simonwass]

Just to bring this back to topic, I visited the Search engine 2 weeks ago. None of the rolled plans have returned yet but most of the indexing info is there, so is most but not all of the bound magazines. I was advised to wait a month as contractors have let them down in some critical areas.
A big + for the new place is that it is open at weekends.
After visiting the old reading room twice, the new centre is 100's of times better. I expected lots of people to be there after a 2 year wait but I was alone!
A massive downer for me personally was that of the 263 drawings listed for the Paget, only 35 have survived
Typically all the operational drawings, drivers valves etc are missing, I'm back to guessing how it operated.