The papers were kept in bundles as created by Leonard Raisbeck, the original order has therefore been retained, where possible, throughout the collection. There are several notes in the collection that have been attributed to 'M.R.' and suggest that Raisbeck's wife, Mary Raisbeck (nee Robinson), may have arranged her husband's papers after his death. The series have been grouped by subject thus: RAIS/1 Papers relating to the Raisbeck family background RAIS/2 Papers relating to The Sugar House RAIS/3 Papers relating to the conception of the Stockton & Darlington Railway RAIS/4 Papers from the early years of the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s operation RAIS/5 Loose manuscript notes RAIS/2 has been split up during cataloguing by document type. The other series were broadly divided into physically seperate bundles by document type, the bundles have been made into sub-series. The items are mostly arranged chronologically within the bundles/sub-series, where possible their original arrangement has been retained. In some cases, Mary Raisbeck's notes have been retained in the series to which they refer, loose notes were it has not been possible to work out which bundle they refer to have been placed in the RAIS/5 series.