There was a widespread myth that few women worked on the railways prior to the 1970s. There are several published books about railwaymen. That was similar to the total number of rail staff in 1989. I visited the British Library, the National Railway Museum, the London Transport Museum, the Trades Unions Congress library, the Fawcett Library, the Imperial War Museum, the Public Record Office, and the Scottish Record Office. During this research I discovered that women had been employed by railways during the First World War as well.
All praise is assumed to be due to men.
The additional material I discovered turned the plan for a booklet into an 80,000-word history that has taken ten years so far and is still unfinished. If you would like to be notified when 'Women Workers on the Railways' is published, email me .