Railway Workers' Pension Files

Railway employees, like other state workers, were entitled to state pensions. These pension files can reveal significant facts for family history research. Where can they be found, and what information is contained within these files?

Train Driver. Edited photo from the book Latvian Railways 1918–1938.

If your ancestor worked in the railway service, it is worth checking whether their pension file is preserved in the archives. In this context, we are referring to those who retired during the interwar period of the Latvian Republic.

State pension files are found in various archival collections, such as Collection No. 5213 – the Ministry of Public Welfare’s Department of Public Care collection. I have previously written about these files in an earlier blog post.

Other pension files are stored in the collections of relevant state institutions; for example, the pension files of railway workers are located in the Railway Board’s Fond No. 4592. The second inventory of this collection contains an alphabetical list of surnames for those employees whose pension files are preserved there.

What information can be found in these pension files?

Pension files contain a wealth of valuable biographical information, primarily regarding employment in state service. If a person had worked before the First World War, information about that period is often included as well.

One individual whose pension file I examined was born in 1874 in Lithuania. He obtained Latvian citizenship in 1921 and worked for the Latvian State Railways as a conductor from 1921 to 1935.

According to the laws of that time, if an employee had returned to Latvia after the First World War, obtained Latvian citizenship by November 18, 1925, and served in Latvian state service for ten years, then their previous service in similar positions for the Russian state up to November 7, 1917, could also be counted toward their pensionable service.

The person I researched had served in the Russian State Police from 1900 to 1906 and subsequently worked in the Riga–Oryol Railway Service until 1917. At that time, the Riga–Oryol Railway was a Russian state enterprise. In his case, all requirements were met, and his 17 years of service in Russian state employment were credited toward his pensionable years.

Interestingly, the following periods were also counted toward pensionable service:

• Time spent participating in the fight for Latvian independence, and any imprisonment or exile for such activities between 1897 and 1920;
  

• Time spent abroad in emigration to avoid imposed penalties, provided the individual returned to Latvia by November 18, 1925;
  

• Service time with the Livonian and Courland Noble Corporations (Germ.  Livländische und Kurländische Ritterschaft) if those organizations’ statutes provided for pensions;
  

• Service in Latvian riflemen units and the Latvian army (but not voluntary service in the Russian army).

  
  

The pension file also contains a calculation of the pension amount, indicating the highest salary earned. In the case of railway workers, the so-called "kilometer money" was also included in the pension calculation. This was a special additional payment for kilometers traveled by employees operating and servicing trains during their journeys.

In the specific case I reviewed, the individual received a monthly pension of 100.44 lats for 32 years of pensionable service.

Sources:Dzelzceļu Vēstnesis. Neoficiālā daļa. No. 16 (30.07.1930)

Latviešu konversācijas vārdnīca, Volume IX.