The National Railway Museum has responded to the announcement of a £15 million investment from the Government's Levelling Up Fund for the museum's transformative masterplan.
This is a significant contribution that will safeguard the museum's plans for the future of its estate and the care of its collections.
It will also help inspire the next generation with the past, present and future of the railways.
In 2019, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport made a generous investment of £18.6 million in the museum from its Cultural Investment Fund.
It will help us attract upwards of 1.4 million visitors to both museum sites
Museum Director Judith McNicol
The National Railway Museum's masterplan envisages about £95 million being invested in capital projects to extend and improve both the museum at York and its sister site of Locomotion at Shildon in County Durham. Both museums are part of the Science Museum Group.
A 45-hectare regeneration of York known as York Central has The National Railway Museum as its cultural heart.
It plans to turn under-used railway land in one of Britain's most historic and desirable cities into a distinctive new city quarter that has a mix of residential neighbourhoods, civic spaces, and high-quality commercial real estate.
The museum is set to benefit from yesterday's budget, which included a permanent extension to tax relief for theatres, orchestras, museums and galleries.
Director Judith McNicol said: “This is incredible news for the National Railway Museum. The £15 million package is a major milestone in our transformational journey to become the world's railway museum – globally relevant and open for all. It will help us attract upwards of 1.4 million visitors to both museum sites and fulfil our role as the cultural gateway to York Central.”
Sir Ian Blatchford, Chief Executive and Director of the Science Museum Group said: “This £15 million investment in our ambitious plans for the National Railway Museum represents a strong vote of confidence in the transformative work underway right across the Science Museum Group, while the continuation of vital tax relief included in the Budget will be hugely welcomed by all in our sector.”
Mr Horsfall, I don’t think that’s entirely fair! Flying Scotsman wasn’t the first reason we went to the museum (that was a “tank engine” addicted toddler) but it was absolutely wonderful not only to see it finally brought to the museum but for all of us (including our little girl, some years younger than her brother) to watch various stages of the restoration. The children were actually more impressed by the bullet train and, when it was on display, Mallard.
There’s no doubt at all in my mind that a well thought-out regeneration of the area around the museum will be good for the city – we might actually have been more inclined to spend money outside the museum had 1) we not spent so many hours in there (none of us ever got bored) and 2) there had been somewhere else on the doorstep to check out if we’d ever exhausted ourselves.
Quite apart from that, surely you must agree that it’s not just a museums’ mission to attract the initiated but also to appeal to the novice? Scotsman certainly does have that pulling power (though my personal favourite will always be City of Truro). Good luck to the city with its efforts to bring new life into what looks like an urban wasteland. Who really cares if it’s the Flying Scotsman that acts as the initial draw to visit the place if that means they fall in love with the whole of locomotive history as a result? I certainly don’t and I doubt that you’d really be sorry if more of us learned some of what makes you so passionate about the subject.
They,ll just spend the lot on the “Flying Moneypit” as that seems to be the only loco in the collection they are remotely interested in! About time the entire place was handed over to a management who actually know something about railways and locomotives….