National Railway Museum (York)

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The National Railway Museum ( NRM ) in York is part of the British Science Museum Group (until 1 April 2012, the National Museum of Science and Industry ) and is dedicated to a museum the historical aspects of the railway sector - in particular the United Kingdom. Since rail technology was developed in Great Britain, its collection has meaning well beyond Great Britain. The NRM is the most popular museum in the UK outside of London.

Panorama of the locomotives that are grouped around the turntable in the large exhibition hall

The museum

prehistory

Exhibition of royal saloon cars
Walk-in magazine

Since the late 19th century there have been attempts in Great Britain to create a national railway museum. A first step in this direction was the Science Museum in London, whose collection included railway technology for the first time. Another strand of development goes back to the North Eastern Railway , the successor to the Stockton and Darlington Railway . Material had been collected there since around 1880, which was then presented on the 100th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1925. This then became the basis of the first railway museum in York, operated by the London and North Eastern Railway since 1928 . Material from other railway companies has also been collected here.

The nationalization of the railway in Great Britain in 1948 then allowed for the first time a systematic collection of collectables and the National Transport Commission recommended the establishment of a national railway museum in York and regional railway museums - including the Swindon Steam Railway Museum in Swindon . As a result, the Museum of British Transport was created in a former bus depot in Clapham in 1961 . An official list of the locomotives that could be preserved in museums was also drawn up.

In the concept of a modernization of British Rail at the end of the 1960s, it no longer fit to freight the railway with the sponsorship of a museum. However, the interested public demanded that the museum be preserved. The Transport Act 1968 for British Rail, for example, gave the National Railway Museum a roundhouse in York, with the museum being operated by the National Museum of Science and Industry. The National Railway Museum was the first national museum in Britain outside of London. The railway exhibits from various collections and depots scattered across the country have now been brought together here.

The National Museum

Locomotives at the turntable in the large exhibition hall

In 1975, on the 150th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway , Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , opened the new National Museum. In the first year after it opened, the museum had over a million visitors. The exhibition is located on an area of ​​8 hectares , mainly in three large halls and an outdoor area. It is a former depot of the East Coast Main Line , near the train station York Central . The collection has continued to grow since then.

In 1979, the museum acquired a running replica of George Stephenson's Rocket locomotive for the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the following year . The museum has represented this machine on many occasions around the world.

In 1990, a neighboring goods hall could be included in the exhibition area, which makes it possible to show vehicles on platforms - like in a train station.

In 1995, an Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History was set up together with the University of York . In 1996, the open space of the museum was given a garden railway with a track width of 7¼ inches (184 mm).

Since 2004, the museum has had a branch in Shildon , County Durham , under the name Locomotion . There part of the collection is exhibited in a new hall and in Timothy Hackworth's historic steam locomotive factory .

The NRM is the largest railway museum in the world and has more visitors than any other museum in Great Britain outside of London : 744,000 visitors (2006). The Shildon branch has another 100,000 visitors a year.

The museum is part of the former National Museum of Science and Industry , which was renamed the Science Museum Group on April 1, 2012 . This museum network also includes the Science Museum in London and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester .

The collection

Mallard record badge

In its collection, the NRM shows over 100 locomotives and almost 200 other railway vehicles of British origin . The oldest are from around 1815. Around a hundred vehicles are on display in York, the rest in Shildon or on loan to other railroad museums. There are also many hundreds of thousands of other items in the collection that show the social, technical, artistic and historical aspects of the railroad.

The permanent exhibition shows a number of British royal family carriages , the oldest of which is from Queen Adelaide (1792–1849). Also represented are the saloon cars of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), King Edward VII (1901–1911), King George V (1911–1937) and Queen Elizabeth II (since 1952).

Other outstanding exhibits are:

Additional exhibits are: signaling technology, signs, uniforms, office equipment, railroad vehicles, models, works of art that deal with railways and a model railroad in O gauge . This is supplemented by an extensive archive in which posters, technical drawings and photographs are kept.

Exhibits with a foreign element include a Chinese State Railways KF class locomotive , which was built in Great Britain and donated to the Museum by the People's Republic of China in 1981 , and a sleeping car from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits , which runs on the Night Ferry route between London and Paris was used.

Single exhibit without reference to the UK is a Japanese bullet train Shinkansen the range 0 - the only Shinkansen, which can be seen outside of Japan.

In the permanent collection, exhibits are exchanged from time to time. From time to time there are also exhibitions of modern vehicles, which the railway industry presents here. Exhibits are also occasionally loaned out to other museums.

opening hours

The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., admission is free. The museum receives £ 6.50 per visitor from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport .

useful information

  • Since 1977, the existing Association of Friends of the National Railway Museum ( Friends of the National Railway Museum ), which funded the museum. For example, it financed the restoration of the Duchess of Hamilton steam locomotive .
  • The Great Railway Show , which opened in 1990, earned the museum recognition as European Museum of the Year in 2001 .
  • Since 2009, the then six-year-old Sam Pointon from Leicester has held the honorary position of "Director of fun" of the museum and helps to keep the museum family and child-friendly.

See also

literature

  • Alan Whitehouse: The World's Largest Railway Museum: Official Guidebook . NMSI Trading, York 2006, ISBN 978-1-900747-62-2
  • John Coiley (Editor): Rocket to Eurostar: The National Railway Museum in Camera . Atlantic, Penryn 1996, ISBN 0-906899-70-2
  • Neil Cossons et al. (Editor): Perspectives on Railway History and Interpretation . National Railway Museum, York 1992, ISBN 1-872826-01-6
  • D. Jenkinson (Editor): The National Railway Collection . Collins, London 1988, ISBN 0-00-218215-7
  • AJ Mullay: Railways for Posterity . In: Backtrack . No. 21, 2007, pp. 164-169
  • NRM 25 . Insert from: Railway Magazine . No. 146, issue 1194, October 2000

Web links

Commons : National Railway Museum (York)  - Album containing pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NRM Review 2006 (English; PDF)
  2. ↑ Manchester's MOSI and London's Science Museum to merge . In: BBC News , December 2, 2011. Retrieved September 19, 2012. 

Coordinates: 53 ° 57 ′ 34 "  N , 1 ° 5 ′ 47"  W.