THE National Railway Museum’s (NRM) research and archive centre has been awarded by The National Archives for the first time.

The museum’s Search Engine service was awarded the Archive Service award.

This is the national benchmark for excellence which recognises customer service and the management and care of archives.

Jane Hubbard, archives manager at the NRM, said: “Achieving Archive Service Accreditation is a huge achievement for the museum and represents many hours of work from everyone in the archive team and from our many volunteers.

“Search Engine users will have confidence and reassurance that the facility is cared for and managed in a sustainable way.”

Since opening in 2008, Search Engine has welcomed 400,000 visitors through its doors and over 10,000 readers to its archives, including researchers.

Among the museum’s archives are some of the nation’s most important documents, including the Robert Stephenson and Company Archives, which document the creation of the world’s first railways.

Other treasures held in the archive, include the Backhouse Letter which depicts a child’s drawing of the historic first locomotive-hauled passenger train and the Rastrick notebook from one of the judges present at the famous Rainhill Trials of 1829.

The archive also includes original engineering drawings of steam locomotives Mallard, Flying Scotsman and Rocket.

Search Engine is open to the public from Wednesday to Saturday and is free to access.