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According its website’s About page, “The Railway and Canal Historical Society is for everyone with an interest in the history of transport in Britain – not just inland waterways and railways, but also tramroads, roads, aviation, coastal shipping, ports and pipelines – from pre-Roman times to the day before yesterday”. The Society was founded in 1954 and is a membership organization registered as a private company and a charity. Its long-running publication the Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society has appeared regularly since the mid-1950s and is now issued tri-annually. The Society also produces an annual bibliography (RCHS Annual Bibliographies) and a number of books including the now-out-of-print Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (Marshall, 2003). Two further publications of reference note with which the Society has been involved are Railway Passenger Stations in Great Britain: A Chronology (Quick, 2009) and A Bibliography of British Railway History (Ottley, 1983). The former work, first produced in 1995, is a listing of the opening dates of all passenger railway stations in England, Wales and Scotland. The latter work, original produced by George Ottley and published by HMSO, has been updated by supplements partly produced under the auspices of the Society, the most recent available in print appearing in 1998 (Boyes et al., 1998).
The Society’s website, with which this review is concerned, makes offshoots and updates of some of the above materials freely available as well as a range of other useful resources. The website serves a dual purpose....