A close friend of mine owns a linen General Arrangement drawing of the Royal Scot locomotive. Yes, I know it’s not LNER but I just love engineering drawings and history!
I made inquiries to NRM to verify the document as an LMS document, not just a copy of same. The drawing has many unique items to it, such as date stamps, signatures from drawing office officials and writings in coloured chinagraph pencil on the back of it such as 1/17, 1/14 and “room 607” and “FS1”
I communicated to NRM asking whether they had a similar document. They promptly responded saying “yes” and I started asking a great deal of questions via email. I was very pleased to receive prompt responses and much added expert comment and suggestions. While I should expect this, their responses involved considerable effort such as pulling out the document, examining it in detail several separate times, photographing it, having several of their experts examine it against my photos and then respond to seven emails. They also assisted in identifying signatures and provided copies so our team in Aussie could do the same.
They obviously appreciated what I was trying to achieve but they definitely went that extra mile to provide me with outstanding service. Being in the colony in Aussie, it’s a bit difficult to pop in at York research items in person. I even got an invite to meet with them when I travel to York which I’m definitely going to take them up on in the next year or so.
It’s just so refreshing to see committed and stalwart staff these days. I’m definitely going to do something for them in the future to assist with their wonderful work. So thank you to my new mates, Peter, Andy, Phil, and Christopher. I really appreciate your work chaps.
Also a sincere “thank you” to a chap on this Forum who provided me with helpful feedback and encouragement at a time when I was finding things a little bit frustrating.
My next investigation involves NBL drawings at Glasgow Uni. Let’s see how they perform.
Regards
Steve