One area of employment that Lovelocks could not embrace until the 19th Century was of course the railways. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened on 27 September 1825, although until 1833 passengers were actually hauled in horse-drawn carriages.

By the early 1840s there was already an extensive network of lines across England and a number of Lovelocks were engaged in its construction and operations. The earliest mention of a Lovelock so employed occurs in the baptismal record of Thomas Lovelock from the Farnham Tree, christened at West Bromwich, then in Staffordshire, on 29 May 1842. His father William was recorded as a Navigator - the title given to the men who had dug the canals the length and breadth of the country, who then turned themselves to the construction of the railways.

From the 1851 Census onwards there were regular mentions in the Returns of Lovelocks with Railway connections, together with mentions in baptism and marriage entries in parish registers. In Issue 9 of 'Lovelock Lines' Alan Whitaker provided a lengthy article on a number of members of his family with railway connections; for the same Issue Donald Lovelock submitted a fascinating article as if written by his father about working for the Great Western Railway; and finally Basil Wright provided some reminiscences of his and his father's experiences of working for South African Railways. If you have a particular interest in railways all three are recommended reading.

Some of the hundreds of relevant references elsewhere on this Web Site are summarised by the table below, which also shows the range of jobs that Lovelocks were engaged in and the several Companies that employed them. (The links in the Name column will take you to the Webtrees page for that person, or to the family fragment in which they appear.)