By the way, we still have some details of the old 1950 Requirements, including this structure gauge diagram.

Railway Group Standards:

These are what you need if you want to design anything, or operate anything, on the national network, and they're available on a convenient searchable database at the Rail Safety & Standards Board website.

Rules and Regulations:

The British Railway Rule Book applies to all staff working on the national network. It is now published by the Rail Safety and Standards Board. This is in the new, modular format, introduced in December 2003. It includes what we used to call the Signalling General Instructions and the Block Regulations. They're all in pdf format so you can't re-write them to suit yourself! And you can even get the Railway Group Standards on-line now.

Sectional Appendices:

There are now three ways to get hold of these. The best, because it gets you the most up-to-date version, is NESA, the National Electronic Sectional Appendix. But this is only available on subscription, and it's password protected. You can read more about NESA in a leaflet published by Network Rail (pdf file, 152 KB).

Next best is a series of frankly gigantic pdf files, to be found through Network Rail's Baseline Declaration page. WARNING! When I say "gigantic", I mean for example 190 megabytes. Not only do they take a while to download over a domestic broadband connection, they also monopolise computer RAM when you open them. You may need to shut down every other program on your computer to view these files.

Fortunately, hard copy SAs are still being published and can be bought on-line, direct from Willsons Printers of Newark. You can also buy the various bits of the Rule Book in printed form from these good people, and indeed more esoteric items such as the AC Electrified Lines Instructions.

Train Planning Rules:

The Rules of the Plan and the Rules of the Route are the constraints for writing the working timetable - signalling headways, junction margins, platform lengths, station dwell times, things like that. Again, they're all in pdf format. These are best viewed on-line, because the individual pdf files all link back to an interactive menu. Note: NR keep changing the link for this document. If you find that the link above is broken, try searching for "National Rules of the Route", using the Search facility at the top right hand corner of the NR site. Make sure you include the word "National", otherwise you'll get back hundreds of largely irrelevant links.

National Rail Timetable:

OK, so this was never Private, but the official printed paper version has been Not For Publication since May 2007. You can buy an alternative UK Rail Timetable from TSO (formerly The Stationery Office). And there's a rival version too, the Bradshaw-Mitchell Rail Times, available from Middleton Press. Both publications are also on sale at some of the bigger stations, through W. H. Smiths.

The traditional NRT has been replaced by a series of pdf files, and these are now available on Network Rail's site for the Winter 2009-2010 timetable. Do be careful to check which year you're looking at, and whether summer or winter - Network Rail haven't bothered to include validity dates on these pdfs.

Loco and Unit Diagrams:

Or Programmes, if you're on ScotRail. PRAR very kindly maintains this list of Loco and Unit Diagrams, drawn from a variety of sources (mostly unofficial).

Railway Codes and Acronyms:

The railways use a great number of codes and acronyms and abbreviations for such things as stations, sidings, signal boxes, sections of line, systems of computer and so on. Phil Deaves maintains a pretty comprehensive list of Railway Codes and other data. If you just want to check the National Location Codes for passenger stations (National Rail and London Underground), download this list (MS Excel format, 224 KB) - it's a spreadsheet, so you can search it or re-order it by name or by number. If you just want to check the three letter station codes (e.g. ABW = Abbey Wood), you can find a list sorted by code and a list sorted by name on the National Rail Enquiries website. You can also try this pdf version, kindly provided by Peter Collingbourne.

National Fares Manual:

To everyone's surprise, ATOC did eventually do the decent thing and published the NFM as a CD-ROM. This follows the death of the printed book, which came in several regional editions, each the size of a telephone directory. NFM 04, valid from September 2009 to 1st January 2010, is now available from those nice people at TSO (formerly The Stationery Office).

If you want to know the fare for a particular journey, your best plan usually is to use the National Rail Plan My Journey page and start by submitting a request for train times. You will also find the Accessible UK Train Timetables site quicker and simpler to use. For some strange reason, season ticket prices can be found on the South West Trains site.

You might also want to check out the Conditions of Carriage while you weigh up which ticket or combination of tickets to buy. The C of C are also available in portable document format (aka pdf).

If you're lucky enough to benefit from Privilege Travel Facilities, you can find full details on the Rail Staff Travel section of the ATOC website.

Routeing Guide:

You can also find the Routeing Guide on the Web. The publicly available printed version, which lasted for precisely one edition, is now something of a collector's item, and ATOC won't sell the new printed book. However, the ever-knowledgeable Jon Passenger has now reminded me that the Routeing Guide is also available as a set of pdf files. These are:

• A - Instructions
• B - Routeing points
• C - Permitted routes
• D - Maps
• E - Easements
• F - Examples and Illustrations