June 9 – National Railway Museum and Jorvik Viking Center

The museum today was quite unique, in that their object collection is full of HUGE engines. This presents an entirely different set of dilemmas for a curator. The NRM, which opened in 1975, is the premier railway museum in England and is supported by the government. It is free to visit and has about 850,000 visitors annually. They also have a sister site, originally planned as an extra storage site, in Shilton, which receives 150,000 visitors a year.

In terms of large objects, there are about 350, with only a small portion on display. The others are loaned out or stored. As we began to explore, some of the inherent challenges of such a space became apparent. How does a curator design an exhibit around such large objects? The layout of the engines remains basically unchanged since the museum’s opening 1975, and this in itself hinders any new development. Perhaps more importantly, what kinds of exhibits can a curator design around objects that appeal to such a small subset of their visitors? After all, of those 850,000 visitors, only a small percentage are railway enthusiasts, while the rest are tourists in York, families, school groups, etc. After the initial “wow” in response to the sheer size of things, how does the museum keep a visitor’s attention? Unfortunately, this is something they are still struggling with. Colin Duvall showed us a few examples of how they are hoping to combat this; their streamline exhibition centered about The Duchess ___ engine, and another centered around a railway carriage left almost untouched. The former was successful in holding my attention for a few minutes, with various film reels and examples of streamline design appearing in other objects. The second, due to some missing photo albums, was much less successful. Colin, who served as curator for the latter, was extremely upset that the only interpretation for the exhibit was missing.

In terms of the future, they are looking to do another major renovation soon, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund and outside donors. They are also actively collecting, adding items to their archives and to their objects.

We also had a chance to tour their stores, and I was able to get a better look at the organization and storage of their archives. They have quite an extensive collection, comprised of books, documents, drawings, posters, fine art, and photographs. (In all, millions of items.)

*****

Jorvik Viking Center was….well….like Disneyland. With smells. It was kind of gross and really hard not to gag. It was all about the shock value….an automated man pooping, awful smells and ridiculous displays. I have no idea what percentage of their objects were reproductions, but it was all flash and no substance. They also used real human skeletons, and it was macabre and kind of sickening. The one full skeleton they had on display was admittedly dug up from a 10^th/11^th century graveyard! Anyway, we are meeting with representatives from Jorvik tomorrow, so I will try to find out exactly what they were thinking when they created this atrocity.