Shildron railway museum takes shape
Date: 2004-02-18, Publication: The Northern Echo
EVEN now, in the deepest south, vehicles are on the move, travelling through the night. They are, at this stage, just getting ready, making sure they are in the right place when the word comes for them to go.
And that word will come soon. For in Shildon, County Durham, the roof is on, the tracks are laid and the opening date is pencilled in for September 27.
The £10m Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, which is expected to attract 60,000 visitors a year, is taking shape.
Looking down from Spout Lane Bridge, a modernist building which will house 70 rail vehicles has sprung up from the weedy wilderness.
The walls are made of gabion blocks - local yellowy stone compacted into a wire basket - which prevents billions of bricks having to be hauled on to the site.
"Once the roof is glazed, it will look as if it is floating with nothing holding it up," says George Muirhead, museum manager.
Rainwater falling on the floating roof will be collected.
"A loco boiler holds 4,000 gallons, so we should save a lot on our water bills," says George. Its not just water bills, though, for the roof also contains photo-voltaic cells that will generate electricity to heat the water.
More important than the roof is what will be beneath it. From a replica of an 1825 Stockton and Darlington Railway dandy car to a prototype of an Advanced Passenger Train, exhibits are being identified.
"Therell be 60 or 70 vehicles from the national collection, some of which are stored at Army camps in the south of England where the preliminary moves have already started," says George, who previously was head of historic operations at Beamish Museum.
"Theyll be coming up the A1 on low-loaders at night, and for us to be ready in September, from the end of June it will virtually be one a night. Its a major logistical exercise."
First in will be Sans Pareil, the engine that Timothy Hackworth built on the site in 1829. Delicate through age, it is going to be given pride of place at the start of the visit. An audio-visual introduction is being built inside an 1884 Sunday School, and Sans Pareil will have pride of place in the middle of it.
"To get Sans Pareil in, we have to reinforce the floor and then take a wall out, get the engine in and rebuild it in situ," says George.
From the introductory Sunday School, the visitor will proceed through the old Timothy Hackworth Museum which will explain the history of Shildon, the worlds first railway town.
"Part of the display will look at how Shildon diversified, and one of the ways was with a fur coat factory," says Kathryn Furness at the museum. "It started in the 1940s, and we dont know whether it was real or artificial fur, but it would be fantastic if someone could lend us a Shildon fur coat to go in the display."
From the old cottages, the visitor will take a steam ride along the 1km trackbed of the original Stockton and Darlington Railway, past the ancient coaldrops, under Spout Lane Bridge and into the new shed.
Four years ago when the project was announced, critics sneered that it would just be a place for the NRM at York to dump its leftovers.
George disagrees. "Originally the project was a state-of-the-art store, but as it has grown there has been a realisation that we have got a major tourist attraction here," he says.
"As such, we have to offer an exciting day out for people. It will not just be lines and lines of rather sad railway vehicles.
"A railway museum is so often about how big an engine was and how many pistons it had, but there are human stories about how the railways impacted upon peoples lives.
"For example, were getting a Southern Railway vehicle that was designed to carry fresh milk and it couldnt wobble otherwise the milk would turn to cream. Because it gave such a smooth ride, during the war it was used to carry wounded soldiers - there are all those stories to tell so this is not a museum of unwanted bits."
Plus, of course, theres the site. Through here, on September 27, 1825, trundled Locomotion No 1 pulling the worlds first passenger train at the stately speed of 15mph (maximum).
"It has atmosphere," says George. "On a winters afternoon with a bit of drizzle, walking up from Spout Lane Bridge you can feel something very special happened here."
There are plans for Phase Two development, involving the coal drops and the Black Boy stables, even though the floating roof has not gone on Phase One yet.
And then there are the longer term ambitions of reinvigorating Darlingtons rather static museum and connecting it by steam to the attraction at Shildon.
From there, itll be on up the Weardale Railway, due to open in July, for a journey through some of Englands most beautiful scenery pulled by a steam engine.
A real rail day out to put this corner of County Durham on the international tourist map, to celebrate its past and to help it work for a future. Back to Archive | 
