Introduction

The railway as we know it today was invented in Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century and Britain exported railways and railway equipment to virtually every country in the World. Those railways brought economic growth and political stability to the countries in which they were built. Edwin Arnold in 1865 said, "Railways may do for India what dynasties have never done... they may make India a nation" and they did.

British engineers built many times more miles of railway and overcame far greater civil engineering challenges abroad than here in Britain. Many of the railways were owned and financed by British companies, not only in the Empire, but elsewhere, especially in South America.

We lost most of this huge economic enterprise by the 1950's and have almost entirely forgotten it. A few firms continue to export equipment and our consulting engineers remain to the fore, but on nothing like the previous scale.

In the last thirty years, great efforts have been made to ensure the preservation of items of outstanding historical merit from our engineering and manufacturing industries. Although a great deal of energy has gone into preserving items built for home use, very little has been done to preserve some of our outstanding items for export and materials of a priceless nature are being lost.

The British Overseas Railways Historical Trust was formed in 1984 to bring this past aspect of Britain's greatness to the public attention as an example to present day engineers, industrialists and businessmen.

The Aims of the Trust

• To promote the study of the history of railways in the Commonwealth (excluding the UK).
• To promote the study of the British contribution to railways in other parts of the world.
• To locate and preserve any existing archive material and to make it available to researchers and historians.
• To establish a museum, which will contain a representative collection of locomotives and rolling stock, including, if possible, at least one example from each manufacturer.
• To create a library of relevant publications.
• To work with other groups with similar aims.

All aspects of British overseas railways are covered, e.g. business history, engineering history, biography, equipment manufactuers and exporters, consultants, finance, politics. We also encourage modeling (primarily HO Scale).

The Trust's Achievements

To date the Trusts achievements include:

Assistance with the recovery of the following major items:

• A GL class 4-8-2+2-8-4 Beyer Garratt for the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.
• An SPS 4-4-0 from Pakistan for the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.
• A Sentinel steam railcar unit from Egypt for a private group.

• an extensive archive of photographs and engineering drawings of the Benguela Railway
• the photographic collection of the South African Railways and Harbours London office
• the H R Stones collection of research papers, manuscripts and photographs of South American and British railways.

Join the Trust

If you would like to help the Trust in its aims, please contact our Registered Office:

B.O.R.H.T. West Greenwich Community & Arts Centre, West Greenwich House, 141 Greenwich High Road, London, SE10 8JA

Download a membership application form or come and meet us at our next show.

Membership benefits include the British Overseas Railways Journal

Due to a legal problem which we are working to resolve, we are only offering membership of a temporary organistion "Friends of BORHT". Member benefits are unchanged except that members of FBORHT do not have a vote in BORHT. When we have reconstituted the Trust then current members of FBORHT will be transfered to full membership of the Trust.