Another key post filled.........................

Some three weeks ago the vacancy for Senior Curator, Rail Vehicle Collections at the National Railway Museum was filled. It is an important position and it has gone to someone who combines an NRM track record with a lifetime's experience of railway and steam preservation. That means Anthony Coulls had passed out an apprenticeship at Shildon and has moved to headquarters. Quite appropriate really as many employees of the one time North Eastern Railway probably followed the same route. So the NRM's next vacancy is at Shildon....................

Anthony has been notable for blogging his job for the last several months. I hope he continues to do so. Scroll down only an entry or two here and you will see the link. Or use A Curator's Life is at http://nrmcurator.blogspot.com/ .

Meantime the month's other big news from the NRM for my eyes is the actual release in a fanfare of publicity of the Bachmann exclusively for the NRM City of Truro. The museum shop or their website are the only outlets. £145 for the basic model, £195 with a plinth and platinum colour box. It is an iconic engine to model and Airfix did very well 40 plus years ago with their kit. It ought to sell well.

New NRM Website

At some point in the last little while since I blogged, the NRM has launched a new website. At http://www.nrm.org.uk/ . Clearly a lot more work in the new site than the old one. For instance press releases are separated according to whether they cover York or Shildon. I did not rapidly spot a quick NRM staff structure plan which is one of my personal bugbears compared for instance to the National Maritime Museum Greenwich.

I think http://www.nrm.org.uk/OurCollection.aspx represents a clearer attempt than hitherto to provide on line access to the collection. It remains very much a taster even if a significant taster. For instance http://www.nrm.org.uk/ResearchAndArchive/ArchiveCollectionList.aspx is expanded coverage but readily confesses to how much of a future task a full online catalogue is.

And inevitably since http://www.nrm.org.uk/ResearchAndArchive/ArchiveCollectionList/DocumentsAndPublicity.aspx refers to The Forsythe Collection by name, both Fiona and myself are chuffed with this new development.