The spreadsheet has been available from the site for around 2 months now, so we thought it might be a good chance to give a brief update, thank you for your interest – and ask you for your feedback on what we’re doing.
The website has had well over 3,000 views, and the spreadsheet has been downloaded across the world – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Ireland, Russia, Germany, and of course the UK. We’ve had some really helpful suggestions about how we can improve the spreadsheet, which we’re going to use when we correct some errors and inconsistencies we’ve noticed. But what’s really heartening is the enthusiasm with which the project and its work has been received, and the details and comments you are contributing: please keep it up!
We’ve had interest from family historians, trades unions, the current rail industry, and railway enthusiasts; and we’ve had interesting discussions with people who are interested in doing similar ‘crowd-sourcing’ work in their own areas. And – excitingly – a number of you have been in touch to offer details or even documents in your possession relating to railway worker accidents. We’re exploring how in the future we can include a function to allow you to upload your material – as soon as we have more on this we’ll let you know.
We’re also working with a number of other groups to see how we can extend the project and to ensure we’re as relevant as possible to the current railway industry’s needs – more on these aspects to follow in the future.
Right now what would be really helpful to us is your feedback: whether by email (railwayworkeraccidents@gmail.com) or through our online form, we’d love to hear from you.
We want to know what you’re doing with the Project spreadsheet, and how and why it’s useful. There are a couple of things we’re particularly interested in:
- if you’re in the railway industry today, are there any ways we could make use of the data to help us think about accidents in the present?
- if you’re a family historian, what more could we do to improve the usefulness of the data?
- if you’re a museum curator or archivist, how could you make use of the data, or the methodology?
- where should we be spreading the word, to make sure as many people as possible know about the project?
Finally, whilst we’re trying to make the blog as interesting and varied as possible, we’d be keen to know what you think about our posts.
Do get in touch!