The Industrial Railway Society

The Industrial Railway Society was founded in 1949 as the Birmingham Locomotive Club - Industrial Locomotive Information Section. The Society is the leading organization in the United Kingdom devoted to the study of all aspects, and all gauges, of privately owned industrial railways and locomotives, both at home and overseas. Collieries, opencast coal pits, steel works, gas works, peat bogs, Ministry of Defence depots, engineering works, docks, electric power stations, etc., are all covered by the Society. Also details of various railway preservation groups and their locomotives, etc.

Steam, diesel, petrol (gas), battery, and electric locomotives.

Standard gauge. Narrow gauge.

Tunnelling locos. Ex-British Rail locos. Underground locos.

Membership benefits include a quarterly printed illustrated magazine, the 'Industrial Railway Record'; a bi-monthly newsletter the 'Bulletin' giving topical news, in addition to all Society news; access to a well-stocked library; discounts on Society publications; visits to industrial railway locations; occasional rail tours; a book sales service; and photograph sales from the Society's negative collection. We frequently publish extra 'amendment Bulletins', which contain up-dates and amendments to various IRS Handbooks - you will find at least one of these 'specials' with most issues of the regular Bulletin. As an example of our "Bulletin", a PDF version of No.901 (May 2012) can be downloaded here. Note this 3Mb long!

In addition a range of illustrated historical handbooks are published, covering all known industrial locos, area by area in the UK, plus some other countries. Other books include loco builders histories, company histories, and an invaluable guide book listing every current industrial and preserved loco in the whole UK. IRS publications are usually offered to members at a substantial discount on the normal purchase price. Click on the 'Publications' link for more details.

Privacy Policy.
This site is wholly funded by the Society; we do not use cookies or obtain and use any personal information about our users.

Subscriptions

There are two forms of membership available for the IRS, Full and Bulletin Only. A Full member receives the "Bulletin" newsletter 6 times a year; the various amendment and special Bulletins as they are published; our magazine the "Industrial Railway Record" 4 times a year; plus all the extra benefits of access to the society library, reduced prices for our publications, etc. A 'Bulletin Only' subscription is the same as Full subscription, with the one difference that you do not get the 'I.R.Record'.

It is also possible to take out a subscription for just the "Record", but it should be made clear that 'Record-only' subscribers are not considered as members of the IRS and do not receive any of the extra privileges of IRS membership. This caveat also applies to subscribers to the 'Overseas News' and 'EL Handbook Amendments' Bulletins.

  One Year
(January 2013 -
December 2013)		 Two years
(January 2013 -
December 2014)
Full membership £24.00 UK
£28.00 Overseas*		 £46.00 UK
£54.00 Overseas*
'Bulletin-only' membership £15.25 UK
 £17.25 Overseas*		 £28.50 UK
£32.50 Overseas*
'Record' subscription
for non-members		 £17.00 UK
£19.00 Overseas*
(4 issues : 212-215)		 £32.50 UK
£34.50 Overseas*
(8 issues : 212-219)
'Overseas News' subscription
for non-members		 £10.00 (UK)
£13.00 (Overseas)
(4 issues)		  
'EL Handbook Amendments'
for non-members		 £20.00
(approx. 3 years)

All these prices are in British pounds (£).

* Due to the very high cost of postage overseas, we regret that we have found it necessary to
introduce slightly higher rates to cover postage outside the UK.

A membership application form - in Acrobat (PDF) format - can be downloaded from the Downloads page.

Note: if you are making payment for your subscription by PayPal (see below), and IF PayPal knows your name and address, there is actually no need to complete the application form as the Paypal advice to the Treasurer contains all the relevant information. To be certain you can add your name and address in the "message" box when making your PayPal payment.

Payment

UK Cheques/Postal orders to be made payable to "Industrial Railway Society". Payment can also be made by Giro transfer to account No: 56-943-4203.

NEW EURO BANK ACCOUNT
 
The Society is now able to accept payment for books and subscriptions etc., in Euros as we now have a Euro bank account with Lloyds Bank.
Those of you in Europe (and elsewhere) who have personal Euro Denominated Bank Accounts can now use this method to order items from the Society. The new account eliminates the extra charges that the Society incured to convert from Euros to Sterling.
The SWIFT codes the anyone outside the UK will need to quote are:

BIC: LOYDGB21086;  IBAN: GB74 LOYD 3019 1486 4756 16

(The UK codes are: Sort Code: 30-19-14; Account No: 86475616)

If you are using this method of payment please advise sales@irsociety.co.uk in order to ensure your order is processed without undue delays.

Foreign orders: We can only accept cash or cheques in UK Sterling, due to the exorbitant bank charges for converting foreign currency and foreign cheques. Please note that we can no longer accept French bank cheques.

Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure! The IRS can now accept foreign credit card orders via the PayPal system. Please go to the PayPal page for details.
Important: please note that we can ONLY accept credit card orders by PayPal, so please DO NOT send your credit card orders to us via post or normal email, as they cannot be processed.

Interested? Then why not write to the IRS Hon Membership Secretary, who will gladly provide further membership details. Please enclose two first class stamps (or an International Postal Reply Coupon if writing from overseas):-

S.C. Robinson, 47 Waverley Gardens, London, NW10 7EE, England

If you are enquiring about membership as a result of seeing this page, please let us know, so we can get some idea how successful it is.

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