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Department of Geography

 

 

Mapping the Rail Network

As part of the ESRC grant we aimed to provide three snapshots of the railway stations of Britain in 1851, 1861 and 1881. The project has been able to exceed far beyond this goal thanks to the kind permission of Colonel Michael Cobb to digitise his The Railways of Great Britain. A Historical Atlas (Shepperton. edn 2005) and major digitising input from the team led by Prof. Jordi Martí-Henneberg of the Department of Geography and Sociology, University of Lleida. The result is a GIS of the railways and rail stations of Britain with their opening dates and closing dates to the year 2000. This GIS has obvious and major ramifications for the study of economic history. At present for reasons of copyright we can only release three snapshots of the extent of the rail network in 1851 (Map 1), 1861 (Map 2) and 1881 (Map 3).

Map 1

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Map 2

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Map 3

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