40 years service - no record

[Peterjay123]

My Grandfather - Edward Jackson (b. 1887) joined the the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway in 1904 or 5, and had continuous service through to 1945, when he died, by which time it had become the London, Midland & Scottish railway. For the greater period he was an engine driver and 'motor man' based at Bankhall station running between Liverpool and Southport. I had high expectations of finding him in the new records but I have found nothing, I wonder if one of your super-sleuths of the railway world could shed some light on why I am unsuccessful.
Any help greatly appreciated.

[Peter Goodey]

By "the new records", I assume you mean the records that are new to Ancestry. Despite the advertising, Ancestry is not the source of all the records that you'll ever need.

If you select the "Browse" option from the main search page of "UK, Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963", you'll see that Lancashire & Yorkshire is not mentioned. If you select London, Midland & Scottish, there's nothing for the period you mentioned.

The assumption has to be that either that there are no surviving records at the National Archives or that Ancestry haven't scanned them yet.

So, back to basics, one of the first things to get acquainted with is this Research Guide

From the list in Appendix 1 you can click through to the catalogue and check whether there's anything you want.

Also check the National Register of Archives
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/n...?subjectType=O

Keywords Yorkshire Lancashire should do the trick

This will list all known repositories of the company's records

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/n....asp?ID=B11613

As you can see, records are scattered around several repositories.

[Jan1954]

Hi Prussian,

You may also find this to be rather helpful as well as contacting the Railway Ancestors Family History Society.

[Peterjay123]

Many thanks for your responses, and some very useful information it looks too.
I will report back if I am successful.
Cheers - Peter

[euryalus]

"Motor Man", as a matter of interest, woud imply that the individual concerned was an electric train driver.