NRS-19535 | Field books [Great Western and Great Southern Railways]

This series is a collection of field books detailing surveys of the land proposed for the Great Western Railway and Great Southern Railway from 1858 to 1860. The areas covered are Blacktown Road to Penrith for the Great Western Railway, and Menangle to Picton, and parts of the Southern Highlands, for the Great Southern Railway.The series consists of leather bound books with metal clasps, containing hand drawn diagrams and sketches of the land surveyed, including geographical features such as rivers, roads and tracks, and measurements of grades, angles, distances etc. Most of the sketches are in ink, although there are also some rough pencil sketches and calculations.Custody HistoryFrom 1955 until 2000 the State Rail Authority of New South Wales maintained an 'in house archives' consisting of the archival records of the Authority, its predecessor agencies and the private railway companies taken over by the government. The date ranges of the records were from 1849 until 2000. When the decision was made to close the 'State Rail Archives' the parts of the collection that were required as State archives were transferred to the State Records Authority of NSW. Those record series were incorporated into the State Records series system of archives control and were re-numbered.This series was formerly part of the State Rail Archives collection. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as series R367 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.