A Head of Steam Again

  Seeing Scotts mention of the Big Boy Canadian Pacific Loco on an earlier comment, I am reposting this article about a trip to York Railway Museum in 2019.

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With Summer drawing to a close, it was time for a road trip and this time I was fortunate to find myself in York Railway Museum. The last time I had visited the museum must have been around 1970, along with my parents and sisters in a stifling bus and train journey from Liverpool, to take in the sights.

This time, the experience was much different, as most of the museum was sited in a new building and the more hands on original experience has been very much replaced by interactive exhibits. The highlight of the show was undoubtedly, still the engines - which even half a century later still made me feel dwarfed and intimidated by their scale. Standing at a railway platform waiting for a soulless passenger coach to slide by is one thing, but to visit these iron powerhouses at ground level - even static - is still an awe inspiring sight.

It was busy and quite difficult to get near all the exhibits, so I enjoyed the experience via my camera's, taking as many shots as possible around the huge venue.

The main exhibition area is designed with a massive turntable inside, to facilitate moving the locomotives. Surrounding it were all manner of loco's from all over the world and the UK. Small pannier-tanked workhorses rubbed shoulders with electric tram-type engines and record breakers, with more unusual engines dotted about between them.

 

 My dad was a huge train fan and my initial visit would have been his idea, but the love of steam has clearly rubbed off on me over the years and I enjoyed the museum immensley. Probably my favourite was the massive black American Transcontinental loco featured at the head of this post, it was hard not to imagine it would not suddenly puff gouts of steam and burst out of the depot.

 Along with the more conventional trains were the radical and revolutionary, such as the beautiful crimson 'Duchess of Hamilton' streamlined express and the iconic cobalt 'Mallard' which foretold of a bright future for British engineering, which never seemed to materialise.

 
Along with these more familiar engines was a Japanese Bullet Train and the various examples of the Advanced Passenger Train and High Speed Train.

In a second shed, the locomotives which served the British royalty and victorian era commerce were draped in colour and visitors could step on board the footplates of several engines to get a feel for the real thing.

 Back in 1970, the museum was full of cased exhibits and models and another section of the new layout showed the hundreds of older artefacts kept in preservation and awaiting their turn for display.
A large model of the Princess Anne SRN-4 Hovercraft was packed away next to victorian signalling apparatus and busts of Stephenson and Watt, whilst in the next gallery, restoration of the locomotives by volunteers could be seen in the fully fitted workshops.

 Its free to access and well worth a visit for any railway enthusiast, or just to while away a couple of hours. There's plenty to see and do and even if not everything is accessible, its very easy to become completely immersed in the vintage rail experience and there is a dedicated viewing platform to allow dedicated spotters the chance to see live arrivals at York Central station next door.