TRAP WEBSITE
A TRAP website has been created and will be publicly available at www.trap.org.uk by the end of the month. At the moment it contains information about TRAP and the various TRAP projects, with brief details of those member societies who have supplied details and links to their websites. In due course it will carry the output of the TRAP-2 project (see below). We are grateful to Dick Sargent and Hazel Bagworth-Mann of The National Archives for helping us to design the web pages and for hosting the TRAP website on the TNA website.

TRAP-1 (transfer of paper catalogues of railway company archives to A2A)
Although this project was previously reported as having been completed early in 2002, with the co-operation of A2A and the Heritage Lottery Fund it was found possible to add some further catalogue pages that had not been submitted by the due date. These were finally mounted on A2A in August 2003. 

A full list of the catalogues input to A2A as part of the TRAP-1 project may be found by going to the A2A website (note that its address changed a little while back to www.a2a.org.uk). Click on SEARCH, then EXTENDED
SEARCH, then A2A THEME, then TRACKING RAILWAY ARCHIVES PROJECT.

Although TRAP is not itself participating in the current A2A Phase 2, further railway archives are being added month-by-month by other project teams. To get an idea of recent additions, go to the A2A home page and click on NEW THIS MONTH. The list of additions for February 2004 includes, for example, several collections of railway material in the Derbyshire Record Office. There are links from this latest list to the lists for previous months, back to the beginning of Phase 2.

TRAP-2 (search for railway archives not yet entered in A2A)
The purpose of this project is to search out lesser-known railway-related archives held by libraries, museums and other institutions and by individuals. Subject to the agreement of the owners, brief descriptions of relevant collections will be mounted on the TRAP website.

The arrangements for recording and inputting the data have been finalised. They have been tested by inputting data on collections at the Imperial War Museum and various other collections whose details were obtained during the TRAP-1 project but did not meet the standards required for A2A. The system is now ready for receiving data from those who have volunteered to undertake the searching. Tony Miller is contacting those who have previously volunteered and issuing them with the necessary instructions, but more volunteers are now needed. The aim is to have at least one volunteer, and preferably a small team, for each county. If you would like to join in the excitement of finding collections that have hitherto lain untouched by railway historians,
contact Tony Miller at wrrctrap@wrrc.org.uk or 'Dystlegh', Rod Lane, Ilton, Ilminster, Somerset TA19 9ET.

Volunteers will be given the option of recording and submitting data electronically, as an Excel spreadsheet or a Word table, using a template that will be provided. 

If you, or the society you represent, have a collection or collections of railway material that can be made accessible to researchers and would like to contribute details to this project, please contact Tony Miller for a copy of the instructions. The project is not intended to cover libraries of books and magazines, but it does embrace collections of railway official publications and photographic collections.

TRAP-3 (creating a database of railway company authority records for The National Archives)
Christopher Awdry has been adding to the list of railway companies in the NRA index and is now working with Dick Sargent to sort out the format of the Authority Record database in preparation for loading the administrative history of each company.

Tony Miller