The International Railway History Association is born with the aim of being the spur for the historical research and of promoting the conservation of the historical, cultural, industrial and social patrimony of rail transportation all over the world.
  • Established in 2002, dedicated to the history and heritage of rail tranport. 
  • Bringing together members from 18 countries. 
  • Historians, Curators of railway archives, Academics, Delegates from railway companies and organizations, Railway history societies. 
  • From Europe, where the association was born, to global development encompassing all continents with oncoming projects in Africa, Asia, the Middle-East… 
  • Will strenghten its relations with railway heritage organizations and railway museums internationally.  
  • Will contribute to the prospects of railway transport in the 21st century. 

The  safeguard of the rail’s historical and cultural legacy.

Organization of international conferences

-2004 Semmering (Austria). ‘Across the Borders: Financing the World’s Railways in the 19th and 20th centuries’. 

-2006 Lisbon (Portugal). ‘Railway Modernization: the 19th and 20th centuries, an historical perspective’. 

-2009 Bratislava (Slovakia). ‘Railways in Transition: Eastern Europe Railways, past, present and future in the 20th and 21st centuries’. 

-2010 Mechelen (Belgium). ‘Cities, users and their railways’. 

-2011 Lviv (Ukraine). ‘The great longing for railways. How the periphery became connected with the centers of industrialization’. 

-2013 Santiago (Chile). ‘Railways in Latin America, history and legacy in the 19th and 20th centuries’. 

-2016 Istanbul (Turkey). ‘Rail routes from the ‘Bagdad-Bahn’ to the New Silk Roads’. 

-2018. Budapest (Hungary). “Railways and the First World War”.

President´s Corner


Paul Véron
IRHA President.

Paul Veron