A £4 MILLION archive charting the glorious and turbulent history of Britain's railways could be set up in York, the Evening Press can reveal.

Important documents dating back decades - recording the industry from Stephenson's Rocket and the Golden Age of steam to the turmoil of privatisation - would be housed at the National Railway Museum (NRM).

Museum bosses and private sponsors have pledged to stump up £460,000 while the University of York and the National Museum of Science and Industry have promised "significant sums".

But the project to create the unique national archive - dubbed the Search Engine - is still about £2 million short.

There is growing concern, highlighted by the House of Lords, that valuable documents will be lost unless there is urgent action.

Currently there is nowhere to deposit records from privatised railway companies, which cannot be displayed as they are not public documents. This means many are simply destroyed.

During a Railways Bill debate, Lord Faulkner of Worcester tried unsuccessfully to insert an amendment forcing the Government to work with the NRM to secure a permanent home for the archives.

He said: "Unless that is done, there is a risk that the records of perhaps the most turbulent and historically important period of railway history in recent times will be lost to future generations."

Peers insisted thousands of documents would be available for public scrutiny. But the material is currently housed in "very low-standard accommodation, which is getting worse, and is inaccessible."

Lord Davies of Oldham, the Government's Transport Minister in the Lords,

said it was "very important" to preserve documents from Britain's industrial

past.

He said: "The history of our railways, which have shaped our lives in so many ways, is an important part of that."

But he said establishing a railway archive was a matter for the Science Museum, which oversees the NRM.

Lord Davies said: "There is nothing to prevent the privatised rail companies offering their papers to the trustees should they do so, nor is there anything to prevent the trustees accepting them."

The NRM said there was a need for greater public access to the wealth of archives stored at the museum.

But the museum stressed that documents currently held would not be lost if the "Search Engine" scheme derailed.

Updated: 10:15 Tuesday, March 15, 2005