Rails and Trains
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2009
1
82
91
Trip End
Mar 02, 2010
York, England, United Kingdom
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Once we arrived, we found they had lockers but we couldn't fit our big bags in them. We put our 2 smaller bags in a locker and just decided to carry the larger ones around with us. We then headed to the first hall which housed various carriages, some for passengers and some for different types of cargo, as well as a few locomotives. One section in particular was on the royal trains and showed the differences between the various monarchs and their trains. Some of them, particularly the older trains were very ornate and oppulent, whereas the newer ones seemed more sophisticated and functional.
Outside was a few various train sets on the tracks of the marshalling yard and inside a smallish tent was a few older carriages and trains that were not deemed good enough to be in the hall but still needed protecting from the elements. There was also a miniature ride-on railway which we decided was worth having a go on. It was on a small section of track that went for a few minutes then turned around and returned to the start. There were 2 men driving it and they blew whistles and signalled and so on, really getting into the spirit of things. Our bags came along with us, riding in an empty carriage while we reclined in ours and took in the sights. Upon returning, the men kindly offered to look after our bags for us so that we wouldn't be lumbered with them while seeing the rest of the museum. We took them up on their offer and set off feeling very free.
We made our way back over to the other side of the museum and into the great hall which was all about locomotives. In the middle of the hall was a large turnstile, seated around which was a large collection of trains, mainly fantastic old steam locos. The did also have a Shinkansen (commonly known as the Japanese Bullet train) and a small mockup of a Eurostar, but apart from that things were pretty old school. Before exploring too much, I had a ride in the simulator. It was one of those space capsule looking things that you sit in and it moves in time with a video. Rachel decided not to join me, so I rode all alone. There was a choice of a few different rides, but I opted for the London to Brighton route. The trip followed along the real route (I'm not sure from which time period though) and took about 5minutes, significantly faster than the modern Southern Trains service. Since I was alone in the thing, I was sliding all over the place and quite enjoyed it really.
After the ride we looked around all the trains before moving on to the workshop. This is where the engineers and tradesmen work on maintaining and restoring various pieces. There current project is one of the old Flying Scotsman steam locomotives which was in pieces spread all over the room. All that could be seen of the actual train was the wheels, bottom layer of the body and the cabin shell.
The next section was all about train signalling and they had various displays about how it has evolved over the years. There were various pieces of signalling and control equipment, including a full mockup of an old manual switch signal box. The coolest part though was a number of screens showing the modern digital displays used by controllers now. What was cool was that the screens showed York station in real time, and just outside was a view of York stations and its platforms. So you could look at the screens and see a train arriving and on what tracks etc, then look outside and actually see the train. I thought it was cool anyway...
Finally we headed down to the last part of the museum, the warehouse. Essentially this is all the artifacts owned by the museum that aren't on display elsewhere in the museum. There are no trains or rolling stock here though, it is things like signage, signalling equipment, maps and diagrams, art works and hundreds of models. You could spend days in here going through it all, except that it is literally a warehouse with things stacked in front of each other so only a fraction of the collection is actual visible.
After seeing everything that was on offer, we headed back and collected our bags before having a quick look through the gift shop. We then headed over to the station where we had lunch (a fairly decent cheap curry each) and found our train to London.
