This special issue of 'Historic Environment' contains nine papers from the National Railway Heritage Conference: 'Thinking rail, lessons from the past, the way of the future', held at Tamworth, in northern New South Wales, between 28-30 September 2005. The conference, organised by the University of New England's Heritage Futures Research Centre, was part of celebrations of the sesquientenary of railways in New South Wales. A steam-powered engine and carriages conveyed their first passengers along twenty-two kilometres of track, between Sydney and Parramatta, on 26 September 1885. Thereafter the railway system in New South Wales, like those elsewhere in Australia, developed into a principal driver of colonial, and then state industry, as well as a facilitator of nation building, with a network in excess of 11,000 kilometres. In recent times though, the role of rail in modern transport and logistics has been devalued. Rail has been all but eliminated from the lives of many, with the closure of numerous rural and regional lines, the heightened share of road haulage in moving freight and the inadequacies in many metropolitan rail systems (most notably in Greater Sydney).