For the diesel enthusiasts that moan about the NRM...

I was in there last Sunday and workshops were all-but full of diesels, with just one steam loco in there. The diesels were D6700, D8000 and D1023 (all with evidence of a great deal of work going on), plus D200 (touched up paintwork, not sure about what else was going on) and 31018 just outside, in the Great Hall.

The only steam loco in the workshops was a famous kit of parts which, in fairness, looked not much further forward than it was when I was in the NRM eight months ago.

The diesels may not be out on the main line chucking clag about, but they are obviously being looked after and for that I think the NRM deserves considerably more credit than perhaps it gets.


Interestingly, I was also mindful of some of the suggestions that have been made on this forum before about how the NRM could be improved. Overwhelmingly, for me it could be improved by some pretty simple additions:

1. The huge difference that some simple recorded background sounds would make to the Great Hall, taking advantage of it's wonderful natural reverberance to recreate the ambience of a large city station or railway workshops. Played on a lengthy audio loop via an MP3 player and a couple of speakers, this would cost a tiny amount to implement and make a massive difference.

2. Smells, smells, smells! The NRM doesn't smell of anything and railways definitely do. There is a huge market in artificially-manufactured smells (just go into any nightclub or large supermarket) and it is doable.

3. The tannoy announcements. I understand that the NRM is a family museum, but "Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys" on the front of every announcement sounds unbelievably patronising. It's a railway museum, not an episode of Play Away. My 10 year old nephew even commented on how crass it sounded.


Having a tiny selfish moan, there was no evidence of my personal, very selfish wish being fulfilled that D6700 see the monstrous carbuncle on its nose doors each end being chopped off, but there was so much other work obviously going on on the loco that I managed to squint just enough to pretend they weren't there ;-)

(Anthony - all-green locos and high-intensity headlights really don't sit well together, hint hint! )