Shipping and railways

We hold records about shipping and railways including information about seamen, immigration, and the administration of railways such as staff, correspondence and plans.

Finding shipping and railway records

Research guides

Research guides give information about the types of records you might find on different topics, and relevant series of records that may help get you started.

Research guide to records about shipwrecks and boating accidents—series of records which may assist researchers in identifying shipwrecks and to research boating accidents.
Research guide to railway records—information on all aspects of the government administration of railways.
Research guide to railway locomotive and rollingstock drawings—tracing the development of railway locomotive and rollingstock in Queensland from 1864 onwards.

See our immigration page for searching for people who arrived by sea. Not all records can be searched for online, so please contact us if you need help.

Search the catalogue

ArchivesSearch provides access to our collection of records, including documents, letters, land orders, maps, plans and images. For help searching, read the ArchivesSearch help guide.

Contact us

Search the collection

For help searching:

read the ArchivesSearch help guide
read about getting started with your research
read about A Brief History of Government Administration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Queensland.

Archival research terms

Record—information of permanent and historic value, often in paper-based form (e.g. a letter, photograph, a map), but can also be a CD, a film or a digital file

Item—a single record or many records, e.g. an item may be a single architectural drawing, a 500-page leather-bound book, or a bundle of correspondence (letters, telegrams, reports)

Series—a group of related items created, received, or used in the same activity

Agency—the Government Agency responsible for creating a series. For example, the Department of Education is the Government agency who created a series of School Admission registers for Runcorn State School. An admission register for Runcorn State School would be considered an item within that series.

Last updated:: 27 August 2024

Our collection