The Railway Act of 1888 required the Commissioners to — (1) keep a record of all persons in the railway service, including details of rank, position or grade, length of service, salaries, and such other particulars as they thought fit; (2) maintain records of deaths, dismissals, resignations, promotions, and reductions, and (3) in July 1889 and every third year thereafter, publish in the Gazette a list of persons employed in the railway service up to the preceding 30 June. As a result genealogists and family historians can draw on a wealth of information of some 370,000 entries to railway personnel whose names were published between 1889 and 1940. The latest digital resources allow direct searching using QFHSdatasearch and links to source images, viewable with Acrobat Reader. Searching is made easy using fields, keywords, and Booleann selection, sorting, and wildcards.

Unless otherwise stated, these resources are Queensland in content. Abbreviations have the meanings as shown: '+' postage extra; AUD$ Australian currency, CD CD-ROM, Edn edition, FA post free Australia-wide, GST goods & services tax (Australia), M microfiche, MIs monumental inscriptions, NA not available/applicable, P print (books, hard copy), '.pdf' portable document format, P&P postage & packing, Pub published (yyyy), R microfilm reel/s, TBA to be announced/advised.