The original order of the collection has been difficult to ascertain due to the lack of any specific records of drawing office practice. However, during the course of listing the contents it has become clear that there are three distinct groups of drawings. The Locomotive Works and the Carriage & Wagon Works maintained their own separate numerical sequences for their drawings. This has been restored and the two main sets of drawings sorted into numerical order within these two divisions and listed according to this convention. In each case sequences of previously un-numbered drawings have been added. These have the additional prefix UN and have been allocated artificial numbers by the National Railway Museum in series from 50001 and 60001 respectively. There is a third group of mainly small drawings known as ‘sketches’ and with a single numerical sequence and a ‘SK’ prefix. These have also been separately sorted. Within the Carriage and Wagon sequence there are three further small sets of drawings, but the numbers do not seem to interfere with the normal numbering pattern. To identify these drawings they have been allocated the prefix ‘MC’ for those drawings originating with Metro-Cammell of Saltley and ‘N’ for those originating with J Stone & Co. The third sequence of three drawings only have the prefix RCD and appear to be related to War Office production during the Great War. All three sets have been allocated to separate boxes for storage and retrieval purposes, as it is not clear whether the numbering sequence is proper to the Stoke Works.