This is the Metadyne Website

London Transport Records

The world's oldest Underground, and Britain's oldest bus company are bound to create historical interest and a vast number of records. Because of their public sector ownership, and because of state regulation, the resulting records are particularly rich, with many housed at the National Archives. The proprietor of Nebulous Books (and of this website) is happy to have supported the referencing of these in a handy form.

LT Records at the National Archives

Peter Bancroft had been a meticulous researcher until his untimely death in 2004. He spent hundreds of hours at the National Archives (then called the Public Record Office) not only doing original research but reviewing and documenting all the archives that seemed likely to contain anything relating to London Transport and its predecessors.

The result was a substantial volume ‘London Transport Records at the Public Record Office (part one)’, published in 1996. This was an interim publication reflecting the huge amount of data already amassed but acknowledging that further research was going to be a protracted exercise. In many cases the indexes simply shed no light on what the contents of individual pieces might contain, so all likely documents had to be physically inspected to see if they contained relevant material. This was tremendously time consuming.

Nevertheless huge progress was made and material was gradually sorted and compiled into a number of files destined to become Part Two. His death meant the work was never completed, but I took over his research files and uncompleted writings and identified the various documents that appeared to have been intended to become the second volume.

Spare time being a virtually unknown commodity, it has taken far too long to deal with the material, and I am in fact not convinced I have captured everything yet. The material is assembled in the same format as Part One but it is not at present practicable to produce a printed volume owing to expense, storage and distribution complications. It is, however, hoped that production in electronic form, as an interim measure, will at least make the information available to anybody interested.

Please note there is still some editing to do undertake with this document, not least the index page numbers.