Midland Railway
Luggage Labels

Now updated to the FOURTH EDITON

This is a guide to the collection of Midland Railway luggage labels owned by the Midland Railway Society and held in the Railway Study Centre at the Derby Silk Mill Museum of Making, where it is catalogued as Item Number 14257. It is based on the Third Edition of an earlier work on Midland Railway luggage labels (RPS Handbook H1) undertaken by The Railway Print Society.

The RPS was founded in 1976 to encourage the study and discussion of, and exchange of information about, all forms of printed material issued by the railways of the British Isles. Later changing its name to the Railway Ephemera Society, it was forced to close down in 2017 due to falling membership and a lack of volunteers to join the Committee. Custodianship of the Handbook then passed to the Midland Railway Society.

The author of the RPS work is Roy Burrows, whose extensive collection of Midland Railway ephemera and artefacts forms the basis of the Study Centre collection. As such, it is fitting to include in this document the original preface essentially as written by Roy even though later parts of the work have been edited to bring it up to date and make it more specific to the collection as it now stands.

That editing has been done with as light a touch as possible in the discussion of luggage label types, but more changes have been made to the tables that form the main content of the work – the Alphabetical Listing of Standard Types by Destination. The pagination of this has been changed so as to facilitate future amendment and printing of updated pages and, while the vast majority of information remains unchanged, the contents have been updated to reflect the collection as it now stands. For these reasons the page numbering of the listing has been changed and each page has been marked to indicate whether it contains only original data from April 2011 or incorporates a later update.

The study of railway printed matter leads inevitably to the listing of information by individuals. Such lists are rarely complete in themselves but publication can prompt others to contribute further information from their own collection. If you have information or can make any other contribution to the future development of this document, please contact the Midland Railway Society.