The London & North Western Railway Society

The L&NWR Society is an Educational Charity with the following objective: “To advance the education of the public in all aspects of the London & North Western Railway, including the study and preservation of information, drawings, photographs, models and other material pertaining to the railway company and related organisations and subjects.”

Thus the Society aims to foster interest in all aspects of the LNWR , its constituent companies and joint lines. Formed in 1973 the Society  achieved charitable status in 2005.  In September 2023 we changed our charitable status to become a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation)   

Our Society

The Society publishes four fully illustrated Journals and four Newsletters each year, plus occasional Portfolios on a single subject.

We arrange several events each year, including Open Meetings throughout the year, our AGM in early summer and a Steam-up in September.  We also attend a number of model railway and model engineering exhibitions. There are four documentary services which are available to members: Library, Archive, Photographic and Drawing.

Whilst not being a preservation society, we try to encourage preservation by assisting with information and attempting to find suitable homes for any items discovered that may be worth preserving, or that may provide components for preservation projects.

A large number of the Society’s members build models and the Society assists model manufacturers whenever possible. We actively encourage and support the preservation of LNWR artefacts large and small.

The Society has a well equipped study centre located in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.  Here we store our archive material which includes thousands of documents, plans and photographs.  Members have free access to a vast and growing range of material via our online archive,  This is currently available to all Society members who can log in at any time and from any location.   We have numerous LNWR photographs that can be purchased from our Zenfolio account.   Work is ongoing adding more material to both our physical and digital archives. We aim to make as much as possible available to members and to all those interested in the railway.  A full list of the benefits of membership can be found here

The Society has a lively Facebook Group, follow the link at the foot of the page.

Raising steam at one of our “Steam Up” events.