British National Railway Museum (England)
This time the Railway Heritage World Blog received some photos and critics from Silvia Russo, an Italian chemist who is developing her skills in the Conservation Science field. She is enrolled in the Erasmus Mundus Archaeological Material Science, developed by Sapienza University in Rome, Évora University in Portugal and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Silvia took us to York, where is located the first national museum out of London in England, the Railway National Museum.
History
The first railway connection in York was built in 1839, after George Hudson persuaded George Stephenson saying that this would be a profitable initiative. In 1854 George Hudson, at this time knew as the “Railway King”, created the North Eastern Railway Company, which had its headquarters in York. Hudson lost his companies in 1866. However, the York Railway Station became the largest station in the world in 1877, when it was entirely built. The railway heritage complex of York is huge, which can provide us many studies about its reuse. Due to this fact, this time we will not speak about the main building of this railway, but about one of its depot.
The depot became a museum in 1975 to receive a huge amount of old railway material collected and preserved by the British Railway Company after it started to work with the Science Museum Group. In 1990, the Leeman Station Road, another depot, was used to extend the museum, multiplying its size, which got to the National Railway Museum the Year Prize of Museum in 1990.
In 1999, the big Hall of the Station became a big railway workshop, none as The Work, which creates a relationship between the station and the Museum. This new initiative got to the museum another prize in 2001, the European Museum of the Year Award.
Source:
http://www.nrm.org.uk/PlanaVisit/Events/churchill/restoration
The Exhibition
Silvia Russo, 2017
Silvia reported that the museum seems to be a bit crumbling and the exhibition is not very user-friendly, because things seems to be disposed in not a very rational way. Even like that, she liked the tour and she realized that the collection is huge and very important to preserve the railway history.
Silvia Russo, 2017
Silvia Russo, 2017
“The trains are very well preserved most of the time, sometimes they are a bit too conserved, because they were all repainted and renewed, what it is nice to see, but it also take off a bit of the object's history. It is decadent in terms of displaying things and the location too. But maybe they (railway museums) are all like that. I am not really into displaying issue about this kind of materials. Anyway, it was interesting for this too, because, for example, a part from the trains, you had a room full of shelves with many objects full of dust, just putted there and labelled like an antiques store, it was very fascinating, but not really a museum if you know what I mean. I loved it but because I love this kind of things, but it was not enjoyable because you could barely see what was there.”
Silvia Russo, 2017
This collection exists for two centuries already, they have more than a hundred vehicles, a big library (known as Seach Engine) and a play area. If you want to see more, just click here.
The Railway and the City
The Museum launch in 1994 the Institution of Railway Studies, establishing a relationship with the York University. The archive and research center of Search Engine, became another initiative that helps to amplify the museum collection. The Heritage Lottery Fund and the Higher Education Funding Council allowed the National Museum to give access to one of the biggest collections of railway heritage in the World.
The building is close to the main Railway Station of York, and many other urban attractions like St. Mary’s Abbey, York Art Gallery and Clifford’s Tower.
Final Considerations
The railway infrastructure is huge, constituted by many kind of buildings, thus it is nice to see an example that did not use the railway station or the rails, the most obvious structures of the railway complex. The conversion of an old building to a museum is a current initiative, what makes the difference is the maintenance, the way of attracting people and the exhibition. Full of different kinds of materials, this museum seems to be fascinating and, actually, it attracts people attention, but probably, for those who wants to understand things as they were before, the exhibition does not help. It does not seem to be self-explanatory, despite they might seem to be very interesting.
