United Kingdom
Railroad History
Museums and RailFan sites

1. SERA - Suburban Electric Railway Association
   The Suburban Electric Railway Association (SERA) was formed in 1996, but was then called the Mersey & Tyneside Electric Preservationists as the group had the original intention to secure for preservation the Merseyside 503 and the South Tyneside EPB electric multiple units (EMUs). Both these aims were achieved within 8 months and the group expanded its aims over the next couple of years to promote the preservation of DC electric suburban trains from all areas of England. With this expansion of aims came a need to create a new identity that reflected the national scope of the group and so in 1998 the group changed its name to the Suburban Electric Railway Association. SERA has now assembled the largest private collection of electric multiple units in the country and they are all located at the Coventry Electric Railway Centre.
   
   
2. RPSI - Railway Preservation Society of Ireland
   The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland is an Irish railway preservation group operating throughout Ireland, founded in 1964. Mainline steam train railtours are operated from Dublin and Belfast, but occasionally from other locations as well. The society has bases in Dublin and Whitehead, County Antrim, with the latter hosting a museum and occasionally operating short steam rides within the confines of its site. The society owns heritage wagons, carriages, steam engines, diesel locomotives and metal-bodied carriages suitable for mainline use.
   
   
3. MSLR - Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, Steam Heritage Museum
   The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, known affectionately as 'The Middy' was a classic case of a railway built late on in the great railway age that never paid its way. Indeed, it effectively went broke before it opened but still managed to struggle on for 50 years! This fine example of quirky English history is remembered in Suffolk's only railway museum, also called the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway Co., which is dedicated to keeping alive the memories of the Middy.
   
   
4. DRPS - Darlington Railway Preservation Society
   The Darlington Railway Preservation Society is run entirely by volunteers to preserve Darlington’s railway heritage and restore significant locomotives and artefacts for the enjoyment and education of future generations. The DRPS is home to Darlington’s biggest collection of locomotives.
   
   
5. Dolgarrog Railway Society
   The Dolgarrog Railway Society aims to re-establish a small industrial railway line (with a rural flavour), at Dolgarrog, in the beautiful Conwy Valley, in North Wales. It also intends to preserve locomotives and rolling stock appropriate to the line.
   
   
6. Doon Valley Railway
   ARPG - Ayrshire Railway Preservation Group are the owners and operators of the Doon Valley Railway. The Group was founded in 1974 with a view to preserving Scottish industrial railway heritage. This website chronicles the history of the Group and of industrial railways in Scotland, with particular reference to the former NCB system at Waterside, part of which the Group has preserved.
   
   
7. BWLR - The Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway
   The Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway, a delightful 2 foot gauge line tucked away in the heart of the Kent countryside, England, near the village of Bredgar in a richly wooded area of the North Kent Downs. On view in the engine shed there is a whole range of steam locomotives of varying gauges, freight and carriage stock, and other railway artefacts. A corner of the engine shed has been built to represent a pumping station with a working Victorian Steam Driven Beam Engine.
   
   
8. East Anglian Railway Museum
   The East Anglian Railway Museum is located at Chappel and Wakes Colne railway station in Essex, England, which is situated on the former Great Eastern Railway branch line from Marks Tey to Sudbury. We have a comprehensive collection of period railway architecture and engineering in East Anglia. The Museum has a wide collection of locomotives and rolling stock, some of which are fully restored and others are undergoing repair and restoration.
   
   
9. Mangapps Railway Museum
   Mangapps Railway Museum is a privately owned working museum established on a farm at Burnham on Crouch, Essex. It features a ¾ mile standard gauge passenger carrying line, with restored stations, signal boxes and ancillary equipment removed from various sites throughout East Anglia. To operate the line the Museum has 10 steam and diesel locomotives and over 80 carriages and wagons, some of considerable historic and technical interest. To complement the working railway the Museum has a collection of smaller railway relics which is one of the largest of its kind in Britain. This collection contains historic items connected with every aspect of railway operation and has a particular bias towards the railways of East Anglia and railway signalling - in fact the signalling collection is believed to be the largest on public display in Britain.
   
   
10. Bressingham Steam and Gardens
    Bressingham Steam & Gardens is a steam museum and gardens located at Bressingham (adjacent to a garden centre), west of Diss in Norfolk, England. The site has several narrow gauge rail lines and a number of types of steam engines and vehicles in its collection and is also the home of a Dad's Army exhibition.
    
    
11. Rocks by Rail the Living Ironstone Museum
    Rutland Railway Museum, now trading as Rocks by Rail: The Living Ironstone Museum, is a heritage railway on part of a former Midland Railway mineral branch line. It is situated north east of Oakham, in Rutland, England. The museum offers an open-air site dedicated to recreating an ironstone tramway system in its entirety from the extraction of iron ore from a 'first cut' quarry face reproduced in the quarry viewing area to the exchange sidings with the BR rail head. The museum aims to preserve and operate industrial locomotives and mineral wagons from local quarry railways as well as artefacts related to quarry railways in general.
    
    
12. Head of Steam
    Head of Steam, formerly known as the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, is a railway museum located on the 1825 route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the world's first steam-powered passenger railway. It is based inside the station building at the North Road railway station. Its exhibits are devoted to the area formerly served by the North Eastern Railway with a particular focus on the Stockton & Darlington Railway and the railway industry of Darlington.
    
    
13. STEAM - Museum of the Great Western Railway
    STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway, also known as Swindon Steam Railway Museum, is housed in part of the former railway works in Swindon, England – Wiltshire's 'railway town'. The Museum tells the story of the men and women who built, operated and travelled on the Great Western Railway - 'God’s Wonderful Railway' - a railway network that, through the pioneering vision and genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was regarded as the most advanced in the world.
    
    
14. Buckinghamshire Railway Centre
    Buckinghamshire Railway Centre is a railway museum operated by the Quainton Railway Society Ltd. at Quainton Road railway station, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. The Centre boasts one of the largest private railway collections in the country with many steam locomotives. These range from express passanger types to the humble shunting engine. There is also an impressive collection of numerous interesting items of rolling stock.
    
    
15. VCT - Vintage Carriages Trust
    The Vintage Carriages Trust is a volunteer body, based on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. It was formed in the late 1960s by a group of volunteers whose interest was in wooden bodied carriages. They could see that there was a need to concentrate on the preservation of these historic items which were in grave danger of disappearing due to the weather and vandalism damage and unsuitability for regular use on preserved railways of the day. The Collection held by the Trust is at present nine historic railway carriages, also three small industrial steam locomotives, and a collection of railway posters and other miscellaneous railway items. The Trust owns the Museum of Rail Travel at Ingrow - the first station from Keighley on the Worth Valley Railway.
    
    

  
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