[Contents]

Foreword

When is a coach a car, a spade a shovel or a train describer a platform indicator? The railway sector is blessed with a rich and historic language, but a minefield when precise description is necessary for organising and searching. I commend the work of the MDA and Railway Terminology Group for the long, hard and even tedious work necessary to provide museums with a tool which enables us to extract the full value from the incredible investment we make in acquiring and documenting our collections. It is characteristic of our sector, and of railway heritage in particular, that much of the work has been on a voluntary basis by the practitioners who understand the subject matter and who are committed to delivering better subject access to the railway heritage.

Sam Mullins
Director
London's Transport Museum
August 2002