A view of a national museum

A perfectly brilliant rant about National Museums http://irishwaterwayshistory.com/rants/lets-burn-down-collins-barracks/ .

It is always good education to reflect on these matters. Without dwelling too long, the question is this: by holding onto items in stores, unsorted and unappreciated, can a museum fail firstly to present its own full story and secondly leave outside in the cold pieces which its proper purpose demanded an interest in? The blogger does not mention by name the National Transport Museum at Howth but he could have done. The collection there (see my picture) is worthy of state support but is ignored by those at the national collection.

Mallard at Shildon

We have been working hard at Facebook and you are very welcome to drop by. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.146837008723396.39113.100001912940850&saved#!/photo.php?fbid=147537175320046&set=a.146837008723396.39113.100001912940850&type=1&theater

The text there: This was the day 23rd June 2010 that Tornado brought Mallard from York to Shildon. There was a huge amount of excitement, 1000s of people and a small degree of controversy. That was about Mallard the icon leaving York. It now seems that her trip to Shildon is being foreshortened. The development for which she had to vacate the Great Hall called NRM+ has been cancelled. Sometime this summer she is heading off to Germany for a DB exhibition and then back to York. The photo of Mallard outside at Shildon thereby becomes unusual and if you remember how many people there were it was darned difficult to get. How did it happen? Without dimwhit me quite appreciating it, Hannah Bayman a BBC Look North weathergirl cleared the crowds to do her broadcast. Subsequently to my wife's hilarity I have managed to serve her coffee in our kitchen and still not realised who she was. Ooops or is it my inherent discretion?

"NRM+ as a cohesive project is no longer viable and will therefore be cancelled"

The url for this story is http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/27042011-nrm-scraps-facelift . So it is a biggy. The dream of several years which I know has intensively involved staff substantially diverting them from important everyday work is over. The Regional Growth Fund turned down a £7 million bid as part of the £21 million package. This came after several other turn downs. Meanwhile as previously blogged November 2009, we will trail behind the example of the massive redisplay of the Dutch Railway Museum in Utrecht.

There will be a certain thread of opinion heaving a sigh of relief for there are those who think that the cathedral qualities of the former running shed (albeit re-roofed) and the roundhouse nature of the displays of mechanical icons had an inherent quality which appeared under threat. However it cannot be gainsaid that over many years the NRM has appeared weak at presenting an overall narrative. That was something the Dutch went for head on and with fairground ride style interpretation. It will certainly be fascinating to see how the pieces are picked up from this position.

Is it a consequence of the NRM+ demise that Mallard's stay in Shildon in being foreshortened ? Mallard drew the crowds to Shildon when she went there but also attracted the critics that such an important engine was leaving the "centre". It really depends on how you see the NRM. As a federation of locations or as the pre-eminent location with satellites. Anyway if like me Shildon is your local make sure you have clocked Mallard whilst you can.

As I find any more coverage I shall add links:
Railway Magazine
Heritage Railway
The Press
Museums Journal
National Preservation

The NRM and Guides

Just about when I was preparing the preceding post, the NRM's own blog was providing details on its holdings of railway guides. Primarily they were focussing on their rich strata of 19th century railway guides but the Forsythe Collection was flagged up. I have left a comment adding some detail about how to find more substantive guides as opposed to the ephemera which is the real strength of what went from Prudhoe to York. Nonetheless a sizeable number of railway guides did leave Prudhoe for York. Numbers more stayed and you can chat to me about what is available. They include for instance the Snowdon and Welsh Highland Holiday Book of 1922. If it occurs to you to wonder how the line was drawn, the logic works like this. The NRM did have a large collection of classic railway guidebooks. We were about ephemera or grey literature, stuff without an ISBN in modern jargon. There inevitably becomes an area of overlap and what we and the NRM agreed was that in general, "library" items were not in the transfer. It was not easy to maintain even that and what finally decided matters was where items were filed. If they were in collection files and shoeboxes it was easy to list and value them for the NRM. Where they were well distributed throughout our library shelves, it became impractical to do so and nor was it necessary with the NRM's existing holding in place.

Virtually Seeing Some of the Collection

This is going to be a dual purpose post. It will appear in my twin blogs Robertatforsythe and Robert Forsythe blogs the National Railway Museum. Since the snow just before Christmas, I have been working Facebook and establishing various presences. You are invited to follow Robert Forsythe, Fiona Forsythe, Robertatforsythe and Tyne Valley Line Rail Users Group (also Shepherds Dene for the Christian component).

Part of the task had been to allow a Facebook presence to serve as an introduction to the material at York. This has been accomplished by showcasing both duplicates and some solo pieces from the collection. Here is an album. A lot of what appears has either also been sold or is for sale (where we had multiple copies). There are still plenty of pieces looking for new homes so do check it out. I shall also remind folk of a very good appreciation of the collection. To close, as I was preparing this, I was reminded of some scans of a definite highlight of the collection. This was a brochure I bought from ebay quite soon before it all went to York. It is a corker and a couple of scans are here and here.

Half Term

Time flies by and half term is imminent. Previously in this blog I explained how a stick of rock had been used to incentivise me, this time it was a chocolate frog. So I am delighted to endorse the visit of Hogwarts Castle to the NRM York between 19th and 27th February. Hogwarts Castle AKA Olton Hall is a genuine GWR express engine which has been used in the filming and in this guise has encountered railway icons like Glenfinnan Viaduct in the Highlands. A range of complementary activities will be taking place. These will ensure no child will lack entertainment if they take advantage of what is one of the Nation's free museums. I cannot say for sure but it must be quite likely that the museum shop will be able to sell you a Hogwarts Castle as well. Models from Corgi, Hornby and Bachmann have appeared over the years. It gets delightfully confusing because the actual engine is a Hall pretending to be a Castle. Hornby used the former Airfix Castle to get their Hogwarts whilst Bachmann used an actual Hall model. Meantime nearer home a group of Newcastle students have asked me to lead a tour of their own past Shildon and up Weardale on March 19th. With any luck this will enable me to see the Turkish Stanier 8F recently repatriated and currently in residence at Locomotion Shildon.

Histories of Travel and Tourism Network

Yesterday I was at Manchester University speaking about the Forsythe Collection in the NRM Search Engine archive to Histories of Travel and Tourism Network. I must congratulate Rebecca Conway and her colleagues. This was a most convivial and engaging conference which despite a start and finish time at Newcastle Station of 0613 and 2222 held my attention in a packed day. Especially noteworthy was the geographical spread of the delegates who had come from Scotland, Ireland, East Anglia, the USA, Germany and Poland for a one day conference. There are numerous follow ups and by posting here some of you will find a route back to me. Specifically one to Susan Major to whom I chatted about sourcing mid Victorian railway handbills. Michael Freeman's Railways and the Victorian Imagination, Yale University Press 1999 draws extensively on Bodleian Library's John Johnson collection at Oxford University. His book is very well referenced and relates to several of yesterday's subjects. On these counts it is an excellent tool with which to take research forward. For Elizabeth Koprowski looking at Scottish pilgrimage some fascinating nuances comes in following these two links to the cultural influence of the great Yew Tree at Ormiston in Lothian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uri_RpWzq8 and http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6UEJNQ . Googling will also get the Battlefield Band's song lyrics and other references to the tree.