History of the Museum
19th century
Before the National Railway Museum was in existence, the Science Museum in London – which was then known as the Patent Office Museum – started its collection of railway artefacts by acquiring Rocket in 1866.
Early 1900s
From that point onwards railway companies began preserving their past: the most prolific being the North Eastern Railway (NER), which opened a public museum in York dedicated to railways in 1927.
During the 1930s, the Great Western Railway (GWR), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the Southern Railway (SR) had all collected significant quantities of railway related material.
But it wasn’t until 1948, when nationalisation of the railways took place, that these collections were all brought together.
Post-nationalisation
In 1951, the first ever curator of railway relics was appointed. A collecting policy could now be implemented to increase the nation's collection of railway artefacts: anything fitting the requirements of the policy – and more importantly being relevant to telling the story of the train – could be listed for the collection.
After the formation of British Rail, anything coming under this new organisation would automatically be acquired for the National Collection for free.
As a result of the 1968 Transport Act, a National Railway Museum was to be built to house the massive and ever expanding collection. Until this point the collection had partly been housed in the British Transport Museum, Clapham and the existing York Railway Museum at Queens Street.
The National Railway Museum
In 1975 the National Railway Museum was opened at Leeman Road in York.
With a number of buildings already containing features ideal for a National Railway Museum, the Leeman Road site presented an ideal opportunity to house the National Collection. The Great Hall had the history of being York’s North Motive Power Depot (an engine shed), and originally had four locomotive turntables. Station Hall was the main goods (freight) transshipment station for York, and the Works was the York Diesel Locomotive Depot until 1986.
Recent developments
Since 1975 many improvements have been adopted by the NRM, making the site much larger over the years.
A major step forward in this expansion was made in 1994 with the launch of the Institute of Railway Studies as a joint venture between the Museum and the University of York. The role of the Institute is to develop the academic and scholarly basis of the Museum through a series of initiatives, including courses, publications and directly undertaken research.
In 1999 a new development – The Works – was opened which expanded the Museum to three times its original 1975 size. The success of The Works led, in part, to the Museum gaining the European Museum of the Year award in 2001.
In June 2004 the Yorkshire Rail Academy was opened – a joint development between York College and the NRM. It is a purposebuilt rail training centre and the base for the NRM’s education team.
Later in 2004 a new museum, Locomotion: the NRM at Shildon, County Durham, opened its doors to the public – the first national museum to be built in the North East. Grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund helped to create this NRM outpost.
The latest addition to the NRM is Search Engine, the £4 million archive and research centre. Search Engine allows visitors to view and see otherwise previously unseen artwork, papers, reports, photographs, and small artefacts. Thanks to almost £1 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), as well as financial support from other funding bodies, the NRM is now able to offer access to its vast archive collection – one of the largest and richest collections of railway related material in the world.
