Its only a month or so into 2026 and I've already spoken on two podcasts about the Rainhill Trials - at this rate 2029/2030 is going to be intense!

Love the blink-and-you-miss-it exasperated side-eye from this young woman working the computers for the delegates from British Railways Head Office. Clearly a woman who has spent her entire day being patronised by male senior managers. British Pathe 1957 - A Computer for British Rail

I've worked at the Railway Museum for over a decade and I'm still mystified why Britain's railways are allowed to sell more tickets than seats in each carriage. At this point regularly having people standing in the vestibules is dangerous and unnecessary.

Strange sense of deja vu looking over these locomotive enthusiast books. Railways were never my obsession as a child but I did have books exactly like this with colour plates of Napoleonic uniforms...

Great news! 🙌 Art UK will be relaunching our crowdsourcing platform Art Detective, thanks to a grant from @wolfsonfdn.bsky.social Find out more 👉 artuk.org/discover/sto... 🧑‍🎨 Mary Winifrid Smith (1904–1992) © the artist's estate. 📷 @nationaltrust.org.uk

This massive programme of training which might largely de-value current worker skills and the never-ending intrusion of AI into computer systems for office and home workers means that there's going to be an amazingly relevant thesis on the Luddites to write in the near future!

Thinking Andy Burnham is the solution to Labour OR the country's woes is like thinking swapping to decaf tea in the evening is going to be THE thing to fix your health...

Would you like to hear some c1920s railway jokes I found tucked into a book this morning? "The last train tonight does not start until the first thing tomorrow morning" "A description of a petrol loco on the Castlederg and Victoria Bridge Tramway which 'never derailed when running normally'"

Nice little piece of Luddite history on display at Nottingham Castle Museum - the sword of a Luddite leader captured in 1817.

Our Special Issue @genderandhistory.bsky.social is now out!! Many congrats and thanks to stellar co-editors @writinghelena.bsky.social, Lisa Hellman & Rachel Jean-Baptiste, and to all our fabulous authors. Fab seeing all 140,000 words brought together! 🌟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424...

A little Christmas treat to you from us at the Railway Museum - watch us make (and judge) early c19th mince pies from George Stephenson's own recipe book: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQMz... Caution: may contain curators...

Good to see the BBC leading with a story on essay writing mills at University level, but its also depressingly predictable in its details. *of course* the guy they interview is now based in Dubai. *of course* he's absolutely unrepentant about the work. and *OF COURSE* he's now using AI.

I enjoyed working with Gemini to transcribe documents in our collection for publication on the Arts&Culture platform. I also did A LOT of proof-reading, but it was nice to be able to share transcripts with the public, who generally haven't spent years learning to tell an c18th F from a S or a TH!

Nothing more fun than a ceremonial Victorian trowel 😍

I think one of the fascinating (if depressing) things about watching Farage squirm under these racism allegations is that he really isn't very used to direct press criticism of himself.

Would anyone be interested in being part of a roundtable on Working-Class Victorians in heritage/fiction/public imagination today at next year's BAVS conference? Let me know if you're keen 😁

Please enjoy this project we've been working on with the lovely team at Google Arts and Culture: artsandculture.google.com/project/nati... Its so exciting to make so much of our collection accessible this anniversary year for the railways from models and artwork to tools and vehicles!

Does anyone have any recent reading recommendations on how people (particularly working-class people) adjusted to technological change in the long c19th? By reading list feels a little dated... Thanks!

I really enjoyed Death by Lightning on Netflix - a really interesting interweaving of the tragedy of James Garfield and Charles Guiteau with some amazing acting. I thought quite a good portrayal of late c19th society too...

Day 9: Map. For my book project I’m mapping museums in the UK which have ancient Cypriot collections. There are more than you might think! #Museum30

I thought I'd seen competitive sports parents aplenty having taken my eldest to football for years, but I'm here watching him at a interschool chess tournament and oh boy! 😬

Hello, if you've got a spare fifteen minutes we've put together a video on the emergence of the railway poster as a visual medium from the 1840s-1930s that you might enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5is...

CfP: Tourism, Memory and Heritage Conference (2026), Amsterdam and Wageningen, The Netherlands. Full details: lnkd.in/ebPHRqgM

In one of those "quite how did I end up in this line of work" I'm sitting in the banquet hall of an c18th mayoral mansion, waiting to judge a cooking competition of c19th mince pies, listening to someone outside sing Edelweiss....

CfP: The British General Strike of 1926: New Directions of Research, 7-8 May 2026 @newcastleuni.bsky.social Deadline: 6 February 2026 More details: @sslh.bsky.social sslh.org.uk/2025/10/13/c... sslh.org.uk/wp-content/u... Kindly supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk #GeneralStrike1926 #GeneralStrike100

If #Railway200 has sparked or rekindled your interest in #RailwayHistory, and you fancy study at Masters or PhD level - then come & study with Dr Mike Esbester at the University of Portsmouth! An expert in railway, transport & mobility history: www.port.ac.uk/about-us/str...

🚨What's that?🚨 You want FREE access to 17 brilliant #RailwayHistory articles from the @jtransporthist.bsky.social? All yours! For #Railway200 the JTH has put together a virtual collection of articles, & until 15 October they're free! Download & read now: journals.sagepub.com/topic/collec...

Just a little memory nudge for kids of a certain age... 🎶See, I reckon you're about an eight or a nine Maybe even nine and a half in four beers' time🎶

Hi everyone! I am beginning my search for prospective PhD supervisors for a September 2026 start. If you specialise in Caribbean slavery and/or the East India Company, and are interested in supervising my doctoral research, I would be delighted to hear from you! #Skystorians #AcademicSky

Please forgive the shameless self-publicity, but a collection of essays on transnational working-class literature which I helped to co-edit (and also contributed to) has been published today! See the link below for details & ask your library to order a copy! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

As we commemorate the bicentenary of modern railways in 2025, what narratives are we leaving out? 🚂 1/6

You've heard about Rail200 this year, but what about Braille200? Our amazing WROCAH placement student @tillyguthrie.bsky.social explains the dual history of Braille and the Railways in Britain: blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/braille-200/

You've heard about Rail200 this year, but what about Braille200? Our amazing WROCAH placement student @tillyguthrie.bsky.social explains the dual history of Braille and the Railways in Britain: blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/braille-200/

Do I, or any of you, know anybody who has worked or is working on the household of Juana of Castile (1479-1555)?

Wasn't sure we were allowed to do that as historians... 🤣 From Frank Pick's Oxford DNB page

A historiography day...

Introduced my children to Willow over the weekend and glad to report its held up 100% (at least for me!) Its on ITV player right now if you fancy a catch up.

Do you have any traveller ancestors? We have a handy guide to researching people from travelling communities in Derbyshire: recordoffice.wordpress.com/2023/06/01/t...

I thought you'd like to know that the crowd to see Manchester's funeral wreath arrangement for Queen Victoria was so big it blocked traffic for hours. Officials told the crowd it would be moved to the Town Hall, and a huge group pushed inside looking for it even though it hadn't yet been moved.

Honestly who wrote the second season of The Night Agent?! The first series was fun and compelling. This is just a mess of people wandering onto screen announcing their motivations and blundering about!

We have a brand new catalogue online to start a brand new week! The archive of multi-talented actress and writer Yvonne Mitchell is now available to search on Borthcat: borthcat.york.ac.uk/ymit

Honestly sometimes the only thing that keeps me in this job is how lovely it is to work with the team of colleagues here. Also the PhD students

Its maternity cover, so fixed-term, but this looks like a fun (and potentially remote-working) job: www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/our-pe... Very happy to talk to anyone interested in coming into the Heritage world and would like advice on applying 😀

Free, on Friday, online: conference on the impact of the landmark 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. Hosted by the Open University. I'll be talking on how the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act was used to police sexual behaviour www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1885-and-i...

Really sad to be missing #SHSConf2025 which looks completely fab and loaded with all the best people!

Trying to make my research project bid sound a little more sophisticated than just: "Let me come and touch your early railway engines for.....history reasons"

Just out of a very enjoyable meeting of non-Uni research people who work regularly with Universities and discussing how we witness so much drama in the sector. The idea of a reality "Keeping up with the Unis" programme pitched to much agreement!

Call for Papers, please share! “Power Couples? Collaborations at work and at home, c.1750-1914” workshop to be held at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany 11-13 May 2026. Deadline for expression of interest 1 Sep 2025. Please see more info in the attached & email me if any questions.