RESEARCHERS at Steam have published some original letters from 1910 and 1912 featuring links to the Titanic tragedy on a new online blog.

The blog has been set up as a behind-the-scenes diary of life at the museum, in Kemble Drive, and will be used to share discoveries made by staff and volunteers.

Elaine Arthurs, collections officer, said: “Everyone knows the story of the ill-fated ship that sank on April, 15, 1912. So when we discovered the documents with the word ‘Titanic’ printed on them, we really took notice.”

The first letter found to mention the Titanic is dated September 1910 and is addressed to James Inglis at Paddington from the Great Western Railway’s District Goods Manager’s Office in Liverpool.

“It confirms the building of the Titanic and her sister ship, Olympic,” said Elaine.

“The GWR were obviously interested in the White Star Line’s new liners for a purely commercial reason and probably were hoping to provide the passenger transport to and from the proposed ports.

“The GWR had been advertising with the White Star Line since the late 1890s.”

A second set of documents relates to a passenger who died on the Titanic. The passenger in question was Christopher Head who was a shareholder in the GWR.

The documents were donated to the old Swindon Railway Museum, Faringdon Road, in 1993 and recently came to light through a re-cataloguing process by Steam.

To see the images, visit the new Steam blog at: http://steammuseum.blogspot.com/2011/02/curatorial-corner-15th-february-2011.html.

Steam also now has an official fan page on Facebook, visit www.facebook.com/steammuseum