‘Constructing the past: railway history from below or a study in Nostalgia?'

This article seeks to highlight the importance of an underused and underappreciated resource, namely working-class autobiography written by those who were employed in the railway industry. Because of the sheer number of such publications, a peculiar feature itself of the industry, I have chosen to focus this discussion specifically upon the autobiographies and oral histories produced by those who experienced employment in railway workshops. The article opens with an examination of railway historiography, and in particular the criticism made of it by academics and other writers who view the field as overly romantic and nostalgic. Close attention will be paid to what could be viewed as the inherent tension between such criticism and unexpected advantages of these very flaws, namely that the demand on the part of the enthusiasts for detail of railway operation creates a market for the publication of shopfloor reminiscences. The second focus of interest will be the autobiographies themselves, written by employees from various railway workshops in England and Scotland, both public and private-sector. Questions will be asked as to how far these publications represent an important resource for the study of railway history, and the methodological problems entailed in their use will be examined. The article will conclude by attempting to locate these examples of autobiography within the wider historical debate on the use of qualitative material.