Railways have an enormous impact on our lives. A recent BBC programme claimed that railways made a bigger impact than the Internet. So it is important to record the story of our railways. That is why we are creating an archive of material about the Settle Carlisle Line. Our archives, and collection of small objects, are housed in our own room at The Folly in Settle. We plan to put as much material as possible online.
You can view the Directory of Resources created by Nigel Mussett. This is a comprehensive listing of material about the Line including books, poetry, art as well as more obvious factual information. There is a separate list of images. You can view a pdf of the Directory and a separate pdf of images here https://settlecarlislerailway.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/directory-resources.pdf . In future we plan to put a full catalogue of all our archives on-line.
Railway archives are held by the National Railway Museum in York and The National Archives at Kew. But many other organisations also hold archives. For example the Midland Railway Society has the biggest collection of material on the Midland Railway in Derby. Our focus is the period from the saving of the line in 1989 to the present day.
History starts today. By tomorrow, what happened today is history. So it is important to collect material today that tells the story of the Settle Carlisle Railway for future generations. For example, we are recording the buildings and the lineside equipment that is fast disappearing as our railways are modernised. You can find the Settle Carlisle Railway Conservation Area project, led by Mark Harvey, here: https://scrca.foscl.org.uk/
