National Railway Museum

Mulhouse puts the nrm to shame! Perhaps it's time for York to go back to a 4 turntable roundhouse- 4 eras, many stories and guides. There is a 60' turntable up for grabs ex Hull.....

 

Do tell us how the NRM is put to shame by Mulhouse, you can't make a sweeping statement like that without backing it up with an arguement as to why, the removal of a turntable isn't a valid one in my view.

 

Mulhouse explains the history in a clear linear way with detail and an excellent range , unlike the ever changing random collection with no connection from one exhibit to the next with some of the best examples often elsewhere and an over representation of royal carriages that were a very small element of the scene.

 

Agreed, most of the interactive type of exhibits I have seen seem to be fairly poorly executed, actually often detracting from interacting with the surroundings or the display itself.

Wortley top Forge near us do a fantastic job of setting up interactions with their exhibits- sometimes allowing visitors to operate historic machinery, or with scale models or representation of the equipment working- they have a forge which has been very cleverly painted and lit inside for example, but it's in the original forge building, in its original location and hasn't been over sanitised.

Our kids love it (3 and 5), seeing what all the different machines do, and did bit it's also reliant on having a handful of fantastic guides who bring the place alive with their explanations and stories about the forge and equipment that is there.

Similarly, our 5 year old girl will happily spend a great deal of time helping the volunteers at the model engineers preparing locomotives, and helping them steam them ready for the day.

She will then sit on and guard (obviously supervised by an adult guard).

Just having "interactive" exhibits out of context isn't enough.

Chris

 

From the NRM:
We’re thrilled to announce that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed a £15 million investment in the National Railway Museum’s transformative masterplan and Central Hall project.

This funding secures our vision for the future - expanding and improving our museum, preserving our collection, and inspiring the next generation with the past, present, and future of the railways.

 

Could not agree more! Though the NRM does represent the current railway very well as yet another example of the people at the top having no clue what the railway actually is!

The part the railways played in the war at Mulhouse stands out for me particularly seeing the loco lying on its side etc, all the exhibits are very well interpreted and link seamlessly in multiple languages which as a none french speaker/reader is far better than the NRM can do in English alone.

All that money invested in those workshop facilities which were second to none to then change direction less than 20 years later. Same with the outside a real opportunity arose after railfest to do something special, instead allowed to mostly be all undone again.

last time I took the kids my eldest said dad “why aren’t any of these trains moving? It’s a bit boring”

 

No doubt the "where there's blame there's a claim" types put paid to Ellerman Lines being able to move at the push of a button, which used to beautifully illustrate how valve gear worked.

 

I thought that it wasn't working any more because the bottom end of the loco needed an overhaul and the mechanism that powered the loco was life expired?

 

I was last there a couple of years ago. I thought the display was disappointing and the information boards terrible. There was no attempt to tell the story of railways really, and no attempt to to tell some of the sub stories either. I thought the whole thing badly done. I am delighted they have some additional funding and I hope they use it to create something that tells rather more of the story.

 

I have always thought that the NRM, has lost its way, and should always have been a stand-alone operation, and kept as such, the workshop should have been an major attraction with one of the collection being under overhaul at any one time, and for there to be an engine, kept in working condition,, that would be able to be towed in light steam ,if not done to NR standards between the various NRM sites, and to go out to preserved railways, and a fund should have been set aside to enable the NRM, using its own workshop to restore some of its engines, so that visitors can get to see engines working, and understand how engines work, for example, what if the Compound was put back to steam, , or Harwick for NRM use, and preserved railway use, would the steaming costs, and hire fees cover the costs not met by a fund, and of course funds built up, could be then used to provide some funding to go towards the next engine, behind the scenes Workshop tours, could also be an educational asset, reaching out to engineering colleges, etc,

 

Given the economics of running live steam, I think most of that is ambitious given the funding for NRM and other museums.

On a specific point about the workshop, when I visited the NRM with small children, watching from the viewing gallery was frankly as interesting as watching paint dry. If there was activity (and that was far from guaranteed, especially at a weekend), it wasn't clear what was happening or how it fitted into the big picture. The team were working on the job, and there was no one there to interpret for visitors. Because we were up in the gallery, engaging with those working was difficult - there was no chance to walk up to a barrier and have a quiet word.

That's not for or against a workshop, but an observation of the limits of them, and the need for a museum to actually say what it's displaying.

 

Mulhouse may be a better museum than NRM, I have to say I was disappointed with the display last time I went to NRM, however at least the NRM isn't tucked away on an industrial estate with hardly any visitors (when I visited).

 

I think all the detractors of the NRM forget that A) it's publicly funded, so not an infinite pot of mony to restore locos, B) a museum that's trying to be accessible and interesting for everyone, not just enthusiasts, and C) in the middle of a refurb, so ever likely not to be at its best.

 

I think this is back to the whole 'preservation' question. To preserve is not to restore, wear out and restore again and again. Much as I preferred the previous regime (Andrew Scott, Richard Gibbons et al.), I can understand why the Science Museum (who now more directly control the NRM) stopped this cycle (and hence the workshop facilities became redundant).

 

The fiasco of the Flying Scotsman overhaul (commencing 2005) was also a factor in making the workshop redundant. SMG/NRM consequently decided to contract out future overhauls and management of main-line locos, after proving incapable of managing it themselves at that time. Once that decision was made the workshop was no longer viable.

 

As a mate of mine was fond of saying at the time: "that's what happens when you don't have engineers managing an engineering project."

 

If only they'd reintroduced a modest £10 entrance fee, they could remove all the coffee shops, and put in a cheap authentic railway type canteen in the tent. Tea in a big pot, 2 small biscuits included in ticket price. Save the collection.

 

And would have lost themselves many casual visitors. The coffee shops serve a purpose.

 

Not as simple as that - if a museum introduces charging, it would lose Government funding that was put in place to compensate museums that opened for free.

They would also lose visitor numbers. Obviously how much depends on the amount charged, but across a range of national museums, numbers basically doubled when they went free. When the V&A introduced a £5 charge in 1997 (having previously been free) annual visitor numbers halved; those numbers recovered (from 1.1million to 2.3million) when they removed the charge.

Charging for museums is a valid political question, but it is nuanced: adding a charge is no guarantee of the museum having more “core” money and therefore less pressure to enhance secondary spend from visitors (cafes, shops). Remember, even the best part of forty years ago, the V&A was (somewhat controversially) advertising itself as “An ace caff with rather a nice museum attached”.

Tom

 

As a taxpayer, you’d be delighted to pay twice…?

I’d be more likely to support charging non-U.K. taxpayers but suspect the cost and hassle of implementing that for the NRM would be disproportionate and counter productive (potentially a different scenario for the more touristy London museums and galleries).

Simon