Members of the public are able to see images of the new permanent exhibition which is being planned for the Station Hall at the National Railway Museum in York.
The new exhibition is due to open to the public next year. While it retains many familiar features, visitors will also be able to experience a range of new stories, objects and interpretations. Archive films will also be shown as well as shorter clips to explain various themes and stories. Large-scale reproductions of photographs from museum collections will add to the ambience
Four main themes will feature in the space, curated by exhibition designers Drinkall Dean.
The Station is a World In Itself takes visitors in the singular atmosphere of a station, looking at the landscape, rules and experiences which travellers will encounter. The extensively renovated W H Smith bookstall which once stood in London Waterloo station, and is part of the museum collection, will go on display for the first time.
Members of the Royal Family have long patronised the railways and the theme Innovation, Influence and Inspiration will include the museum collection of six royal carriages and will examine the impact of royal passengers on railway services.
Work and Play will look at the ways in which stations and the railways changed the way people live, work and play. This section will include a mix of railway posters as well as an LMS sleeper carriage and a Midland Railway dining carriage.
In a reference to the Station Hall's past as a busy freight depot, The Goods Life looks at the impact the railways had on people's home lives. A fish van and a banana van will be on display. One slightly gruesome exhibit will be Harold Jarvis's prosthetic leg, issued to him by the Great Western Railway following his injury in a shunting accident.
All four themes will include oral histories from real people telling their tales of their railway experiences.
The Friends of the National Railway Museum provided significant funding for the new exhibition. In addition, the Grade II-listed building is undergoing a £10.5m programme of conservation, including replacement of the roof. This has been funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport from the Public Bodies Infrastructure Fund. The Museum recently appointed John Graham construction as principal contractor who will work with conservation architects. But, before work on the roof could commence, the museum conservation team and scaffolding company 3D Scaffolding created special wrapping and protective platforms for the royal carriages below, this protecting them from any potential damage.
New and improved lighting will be installed and the Station Hall cafe will gain a modernised and expanded kitchen. Venue hire will begin again and the afternoon tea venue, Countess of York, will reopen in an authentic railway carriage inside the hall.
Joe Randall, Interpretation Developer at the National Railway Museum, said: “Station Hall will immerse visitors in an historic railway landscape, surrounded by the diverse, inspiring and powerful stories of real people and the tangible assets that illustrate them. The space will feel alive and encourage people to relate their own experiences to those of people from the past to create meaningful connections.
“We want to keep the atmosphere of the station that people love but enhance the experience with more stories and collection items. The new themes and stories will give context to the space and help visitors to explore our unique collection for themselves.”
Do visitors to the NRM really want “a range of new stories, objects and interpretations. “? I’m not interested in what a railway worker did or the life of the person selling newspapers when they went home.
The NRM used to be a pleasure to visit, until the museum studies graduates took over and started thinking that they knew what NRM visitors wanted.