About the archive
The Railway History Archive sells railway books and papers published before 1931 as complete PDFs to download.
The railways, in the papers they printed
A railway produced paper from its first meeting to its last. There was the prospectus that went out to raise the money, the act that let the company exist, the engineer’s survey of the route, and then, year after year, the report the directors put before the stockholders. Its trains ran to a printed timetable and its men worked to a printed rule book. Outside the company, journals reported on it every week, and pamphlets argued for it and against it.
The copies that survive are in libraries in America, Britain and Canada, which scanned them. The archive brings them together: the first number of the American Rail-Road Journal from January 1832, Bradshaw’s timetable of October 1839, the Baldwin catalogue of 1871 with its photographs of engines, and more than a thousand company reports, with the acts and pamphlets that went with them.
Every book and paper here was published before 1931, and each is sold whole, page for page, as a PDF to download.
Six kinds of book
Company reports and surveys
The directors’ yearly reports to the stockholders, with the treasurer’s accounts and the engineer’s report on the road, and the surveys made before a line was built.
See the company reports
Acts, charters and law
The acts that incorporated the companies and changed their routes, charters with by-laws, and the state law books on railroad corporations.
See the acts and law
Locomotives and engineering
Makers’ catalogues, treatises on the locomotive and the steam engine, handbooks of railroad construction and air brake instruction books.
See the engineering books
Guides, timetables and rule books
Bradshaw’s timetables with their maps and town plans, railroad timetable folders, guides for travellers and the rule books issued to the men.
See the guides and timetables
Journals and magazines
The American Railroad Journal from its first number in 1832, Herapath’s Railway Journal, the Railroad Record and the Street Railway Journal.
See the journals
Pamphlets, letters and histories
Pamphlets for and against new lines, letters to shareholders, illustrated views of the lines, and the early lives of the engineers.
See the pamphletsWhat you get
- The whole book
- Every page of the scan, as one PDF. Where a work runs to more than one volume, each volume is sold on its own. Where the library that scanned a book added a notice page at the front, that page has been taken out.
- Text you can search
- Many of the PDFs carry a text layer, read by machine from the printed page, so a name, a station or a figure can be found with the search in any PDF reader. The book page says under Format whether that book has one.
- A year of the Journal in one file
- Single issues of the American Railroad Journal are sold one at a time, and most years from 1832 to 1869 can also be bought as a single PDF of the whole year.
- Yours to keep
- Pay once by card on Stripe’s payment page, in US dollars. Tax, where it applies, is worked out there from your billing address. The book stays in your account and you can download it as often as you need. Each download link lasts fifteen minutes; press Download again for a fresh one.
Prices go by the length of the book
The longer the PDF, the higher the price. Prices are in US dollars.
| Length of the PDF | On the site | For example | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 120 pages | 4015 books | Hamilton & Port Dover Railway 22 pages | $7.99 |
| 121 to 250 pages | 398 books | Plan for shortening the time of passage between New York and London 173 pages | $9.99 |
| 251 to 500 pages | 389 books | Railways, Steamers and Telegraphs 367 pages | $14.99 |
| 501 to 1,000 pages | 387 books | Black's picturesque tourist and road and railway guide book through England and Wales 698 pages | $19.99 |
| Over 1,000 pages | 61 books | A history and description of New England, general and local 1,124 pages | $24.99 |
| A year of the American Railroad Journal in one PDF | 35 years | American Railroad Journal, 1832 (51 issues) 823 pages | $49.99 |
The Railway History Archive was founded by Paul Fearn and is run by his company, PL Photography Limited, which also runs The Wartime Archive, The County History Archive and Piemags Aviation.
Questions about a book
Write to us about a book, an order or your account.