News: Sierra Leone National Railway Museum

Just to let you know that you can follow the activities of the Friends of the Sierra Leone National Railway Museum on twitter:
https://twitter.com/SLRailwayMuseum
And Facebook too:
http://www.facebook.com/sierraleonerailwaymuseum

The idea of former NRM Director Steve Davies, the collection was opened to the public in 2005 and includes a Beyer-Peacock Garratt, a Hunslet similar to that at the Welshpool & Llanfair, a Manning-Wardle of 1915, Queen Elizabeth's Royal Saloon and several Hudswell-Clarke IC locos. It's a free attraction for anyone to have a look at, but we do ask for donations and constructive comments from our overseas visitors.

Next week a team from the UK National Railway Museum is arriving for one of the regular scheduled visits, and a second team will follow next weekend. If you'd like to see what we're doing with this collection of fantastic British-built stuff in order to tell the story of an African nation and increase cultural tourism to the country, please do "Like" the Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. You'll no doubt see a couple of familiar faces.

BTW: our main website is currently in a state of rebuild.

I feel the exploits of the next couple of weeks are going to be rather interesting to report on!

 

For those of you interested in products of Gorton Works, Manchester, you might like this pic of No. 73. She's been recently repainted by the team in to her 1960s livery. Pic (c) Anthony Coulls.

 

I wish them well and hope it doesn't end up like the Kenyan one- a dusty, sleepy place not visited much by the locals beyond a few school visits.

 

There are some marked differences here. The very able team on the ground are supported by a skilled team in the UK (mainly from the NRM) and it's becoming a significant part of the Sierre Leone government's strategy for increasing cultural tourism in Freetown. There are a phenomenal number of cruise ships that visit the city: we're working to ensure some of their parties visit the museum and start spending tourist dollars rather than staying in their circular tour buses. That, plus training up the local team in museum skills and developing an education programme - we're well on the way.

If there are any special requests from forum readers, I'm out there for a week from Saturday - a chance to get a closer look at the Beyer-Peacock, Hunslet, Manning Wardle, Wickham and Hudswell-Clarkes. And that royal train that's been rebuilt on site.

 

Tim and I will not be able to get email or internet whilst we're out there as of tomorrow, but will be feeding back updates and news on Twitter and Facebook via our colleagues who will be home on Tuesday, so do please keep an eye out. Should be a very productive trip.

 

As I say I wish them well. My concern is, however, that the UK has a special relationship with steam locomotives that doesn't exist to such an extent elsewhere in the world and the locos on display are UK built not Sierre Leone I assume so the interest to visitors from other countries is also limited.

I hope I'm proved wrong.

 

A £15,000 grant project by the British Library to help conserve the archives is in full swing.
Visitor numbers are up.
Donations are up.
Government interest and support is up.
New acquisitions have started to join the collection - stuff beyond the "big bits of iron".
Schoolkids in Freetown are coming in to learn.
Old railway employees have started to tell us about their time and bring in photos of operations.

Things, as they say, are looking up: this museum is a core part of the sustainable tourism economy being rebuilt in Sierra Leone.

This week, we're taking part in Twitter's #MuseumWeek. Hundreds of museums in Europe are participating - and we're the only museum on the African continent to do so too.

If you want to see some of the conservation work that the team is getting on with:

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SLRailwayMuseum
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SierraLeoneRailwayMuseum

 

BTW if any of you were in ANY doubt as to the international appeal of narrow gauge railways, here's former railway clerk Mr Norman (and now a volunteer at the Museum) - he's a big fan of the FR Fairlies...

 

Here's an interesting find. One of the UK NRM team has kindly dug out an advert for the 24 2'6" Hudswell Clarke 2-8-2 locos that were imported from Britain 1958-1961. I'd love to say that this was truly "British engineering at its best" - but these machines were unreliable - the batteries weren't big enough to start the engines and often the locomotives were accompanied with a trailing tender wagon carrying extra batteries to assist. Two of these locos are in the Museum now (as you can see in my little profile pic) and the photo shows one of the first batch being swung off a boat in Freetown Docks, 1958.

 

If anyone is interested, Anthony Coulls will be giving a talk to the Stevenage Locomotive Society next Thursday, 30th July, about the Sierra Leone Railway museum. 7.30pm start, £2 entry for non-members, and there will be a raffle held during the meeting too. More details, address, etc, on the website.

http://stevenagelocosociety.co.uk/meetings/

 

So I am...thanks for the reminder!