National Railway Museum

Interestingly, another museum (the NMM) has backtracked a bit, and all credit to Drachinefel, he has gone back to credit it



Possibly the important point is to put constructive feedback to the museum.

 

Station Hall to close from the 3rd of Jan for 18 months: https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/ab...-station-hall-close-temporarily-refurbishment

South Yard and the miniature railway will be shut too, though they hope to figure out some sort of access for the summer, and are exploring how they can display Rocket elsewhere given its significance. No plans for additional catering, so the wee coffee bar in the great hall will be a bit overrun I reckon. Might be worth getting in a pre-Christmas visit.

 

18 months! 18! What are they doing, rebuilding it a brick at a time?
Get the DIY SOS team in, they could probably do it in 18 days.

 

I can't find a thread on Mallard, but reading on faceache, Yes i know what you will all say, , someone reported that the NRM staff have let slip that there are plans to return Mallard to steam, Personally, i have to be sceptical about it,
But how could it be done? LSL have a spare boiler, of the same type,it might be cheaper to overhaul that, and do a boiler swop, in return for an agreement to operate the engine, The NRM don't have any budget to overhaul anything now, so its going to have to rely on someone with the facilities, and deep pockets,

 

ECML viewing balcony & signalling display has reopened.

https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/viewing-balcony

 

I'm just watching this.



Does anyone else think moving ever more of the collection to Shildon a bad idea?

 

Just happens that we visited both York and shildon this week. York was mostly closed. All we could see was the main hall. Even the library was shut. So a bit disappointed. Went to shildon the next day and thought it was superior in every way. Better catering, better shop, better displays, better outside dispalys and it was all open. So the faster stuff can be transferred to shildon, the better.

 

Does anyone else think that a national museum moving ever more of its vehicle collection into weather-proof dry storage instead of standing them outside in the rain to rot is a bad idea?

 

Shildon is only about the railway, York is aiming for a wider perspective and railway is just one element.

 

Really? I didn't get that at all. To me, York was all about railway. I saw nothing else. I saw no differences at all. But then half of York was shut when we were there last week.

 

Not sure I understand that. Railways are a broad subject - so you might get an exhibition on, say, the role railways played in the rise of certain holiday resorts. But fundamentally that's still an exhibition about railways. It's not as if there is a whole wing of the museum devoted to racing cars ...

Tom

 

It's been a while since I've been to either (are the six A4s still lined up outside Shildon?!) but I always thought of York as a railway museum and Shildon as a train museum. I don't remember there being much else there except a lot of stock lined up indoors.

 

I have a question about the Shikansen. If you look at the attached picture you will see there are two "sweepers" at rail level on the front on the unit. I guess they are there to sweep any obstructions off of the rails.
The left hand one is positioned directly over the railhead. However, the righthand one is not - its offset to the right and misses the railhead.
As far as I can tell, the two sweepers are centralised either side of the nose. I understand that shikansen uses standard gauge and the bogies apeared to be on the rails. So why the offset? Is the body not sitting on the bogies correctly? Or am i missing something else?

 

By the rough metric of the planking in front of the nose, there appear to be 9 full planks between the two thinner edge planks in the 4'. that would mean that the point of the V shaped air cutter below the nose ought to be positioned above the centre of the 5th plank from the left as we look at it, but instead it appears to be above the join between the 5th and 6th plank, which indicates the whole of the body is off centre by 1/2 plank. However, if the track below that carriage is curved to the left as we look at it (and I seem to recall that it is - to where the Eurostar power car is parked), that could easily account for that offset.

John

 

Based on my visit to Shildon, I'd say that you have that precisely the wrong way round. Both are railway museums, but Shildon gave much more of a sense of how the railway fitted in with the society.

 

From https://trainspo.com/photo/133960/

As @Selsig says, the line is curved. Admittedly the vehicle is the opposite way round, but the throw seems to be about the same, just in the opposite direction.

 

From a strictly personal view, York is easy by train. Shildon not so much. (From London).
I'm aware that not everywhere is London, but the extra change and lack of frequency of trains make it rather less accessible by rail, which for a national railway musuem, seems a shame.

 

I think it's an hourly service on the line from Darlington to Shildon. Not so bad, and the station is much easier than York because it's so much smaller. I guess it is extra fuss to have to change trains, but not everywhere can be on the main line.
Although it wasn't running when we were there, shildon has a decent outside running line and train rides.

 

I’ve been to Shildon a couple of times. My biggest disappointment on a recent visit was that the historic buildings at the far end of the site were closed (and it seemed to be long-term closed). The railway exhibits are interesting, but it is the historic parts that are really the jewel in the crown and do so much to explain “why Shildon?” (Rather than any other town anywhere else in the country). On my first visit probably about 10 years ago, they were all open.

Nearby, I think the Darlington Railway Museum is a superb example of what a local museum should be - some surprisingly impressive exhibits of national or even international importance; good access; in a building that itself has cultural and historic significance; with good close access to the exhibits; and with a very strong and clear story to tell about the area it is in.

As a museum, it engaged by having a really strong story, rather than by taking up space with fake interactivity.

Tom

 

Rather more accessible than the SNCF museum at Mulhouse, Although I found Mulhouse more interesting than York