We want to protect our heritage assets and seek opportunities to enhance them where reasonably possible. The railway holds particular historical significance in British culture. The infrastructure and assets that make up the network are valued at both national and local levels. Managing these historic assets is a responsibility which we are proud to continue as part of our role in the industry. In some instances we are required either through planning law or by the Railway Heritage Act to protect the vital heritage assets in our stewardship.
Investing in heritage
This year we have continued to support the Railway Heritage Trust which conserves and enhances buildings of special or historical interest. We provided £2m in grant funding to the Trust in 2010/11 (2009/10: £2m). We announced that the current annual amount of sponsorship will continue until 2019.
Railway Heritage Trust
As well as supporting the restoration of historic buildings for external commercial use, the Trust has supported charities and not-for-profit groups to lease redundant buildings and attract third-party restoration funding. For example, as part of a resignalling project in Scarborough a gantry over the railway was donated to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
The Trust has also supported major refurbishment work led by Network Rail at several locations including the restoration of the main building at Newton-le-Willows on the route of the historic Liverpool & Manchester Railway, significant refurbishment of the remaining portion of the original station buildings at Derby, and the restoration of the historic downside buildings at Stoke-on-Trent.
The Trust also supports work to improve customer facilities at stations such as Hebden Bridge and Skipton, where toilet and waiting facilities have been improved. More conventional structural projects included parapet replacement to Barnes Bridge in London, and the restoration of the railway war memorials at Crewe and Derby.
2010 National Railway Heritage Awards
We sponsored the ‘Partnership’ category at the 2010 National Railway Heritage Awards which was won by Etchingham Community Interest Company. They helped raise funds to restore an unused space in the local Etchingham station into fully functioning bistro.
Finding new uses for our unused assets
In 2010/11, we updated our policy for disposing of unused assets. The disposal of redundant railway assets policy outlines our intention to reuse as many of our unused assets as possible.
Reuse on our network is always first choice, with reuse elsewhere in the industry second, re-cycling third and disposal to landfill a very last resort. The policy notes that some items of historic value should make their way to museums or to heritage railways. Work remains to be done on embedding the policy, for example by updating our systems to show the location of heritage assets.
We have worked with the Railway Heritage Committee, Heritage Railway Association, and the National Railway Museum in 2010/11 to find alternative homes and uses for heritage assets including signal boxes, nameboards and mile posts. We are working with the Heritage Railway Association to communicate to their members which of our assets are available for them. These have ranged from signal boxes to two rail bridges removed as part of the Reading Station Redevelopment project.
Archives
This year has also seen the launch of our new corporate archive policy covering those records that are considered by Network Rail to be worthy of permanent retention because of their value to the business and to the nation. We have a qualified archivist who is identifying the historical records in most need of preservation.
Significant records include many original railway drawings by Brunel and Stephenson and deeds under the seal of William IV. A secure records facility houses a repository of plans, deeds, documents and photographs important to today’s railway industry as well as being an important record of Britain’s heritage.