Catalogue description London, Midland & Scottish Railway collection of official photographs

One of the most wide ranging official collections held by the NRM it features places, scenic views, stations, docks and ferries - with particularly fine photographs of the Irish Mail train and ferry services at Holyhead - railway staff and officials, passenger and freight train services, road vehicles, advertising and the people who used the railway. Views of locomotives and workshop scenes are comparatively rare in this collection, but the breadth of coverage of these high quality images gives a very good impression of the scale of LNWR and LMS railway operations in the first half of this century.

London, Midland & Scottish Railway

• Railway transport

Original photographers' chronologically ordered register in numbered order with an alphabetical index ordered by subject. The collection is incomplete, but there are reference prints of many images available for consultation in the Reading Room. A small portion of this archive was once marketed by Real Photographs, and reference prints of these are available.

Despite its title, the LMS collection dates from before the grouping of 1923 and has its origins in the work of photographers employed by the LNWR publicity department based at Euston. They were responsible for photographing operations throughout the LNWR network and on the formation of the LMS in 1923 their remit was greatly expanded to cover areas that had formerly been managed by the Midland, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, Highland, Caledonian, North British and smaller companies.