There's a few different issues here. This has ended up being a really long post, though, so apologies
In particular I feel like there's a bit of strawmanning going on here about what exactly the "ordinary" punters want from a museum. If you're going to reject the "elitist" view that a museum should be prepared as "objectively" good in terms of its accuracy and representation even if that makes it totally boring to most visitors, equally you then can't exactly turn around and argue the complete opposite - i.e. that it should be totally geared towards what people who don't know anything about trains want to see - because that too is elitist in assuming what people want to learn about. Both perspectives are ultimately patrician in their outlook
But then I don't think anyone's arguing that it should be one extreme or the other. I'd like to think most people here would agree a compromise is necessary - it's about where the ideal compromise lies. It's still an elitist view, but I tend to go along with the idea that mainstream museums should cater for a wide range of people while at the same time remaining a museum. Too many museums of this nature are going down the "family-orientated" route, spending a load of money turning themselves into glorified indoor theme parks with lots of "interactive" exhibits which are meant to encourage learning for kids
I went to another SMG museum recently, formerly the National Media Museum but now the National Science and Media Museum (a name change which itself is indicative). A lot of it is this kind of "hands-on" whizz-bang stuff about science - in fact there were kids school trips there when I was there. As an adult looking to learn about the history of the media, I was a bit disappointed. The NRM is of course going down a similar route, with fewer locos on display and more space given over to interactive sections
As someone who grew up as this kind of interactive museum emerged, going to places like
Techniquest when I was a kid (not strictly a museum but broadly similar to how museums are going), I'm sceptical about whether the theories behind this type of learning actually work. Are kids really learning, or are they just having fun pushing all the buttons? I remember having fun in Techniquest as a kid, running around playing with exhibits, but did I learn anything? I doubt it. Would I be cynical to think that this may primarily be about creating an easy time for the adults, letting the kids off the leash to play in a safe indoor environment while also giving them the credibility of having taken them to a museum, even if they don't actually learn much? Possibly, but there may also be a grain of truth in it
Either way, it's this idea that kids (or indeed adults) can only learn through "dumbed down" stuff that I'm not convinced by - and that's much wider than museums. I learned about sport from watching sports coverage made by adults, not the really poor attempts at providing CBBC "commentary" on F1 or football. In the same way, I learned about railways from going to the old school NRM as a kid, or watching railway videos for adults, or just riding on the things and experiencing it. For me the best part of the NRM is the balcony over York station, because it's the only place you get to see a train actually do what it's meant to do. Beyond that, the other important parts are the Bullet Train and the Pullman Mark 2, because those are actually about sitting on a train. You don't need to dumb it down - have higher expectations of your visitors. They will meet them, because people aren't stupid
But anyway, I also ought to defend the NRM. They are absolutely skint. They've cut back massively on staff, and there's now comparatively very little on display there as it's all been shared around various different places. It's a far cry from when I was there as an 11-year-old in 2002 when the Great Hall was full of locos. The reason they offer things like getting in Mallard's cab now is, to paraphase what a member of NRM staff told me last year, "to provide a USP to the museum now that half the engines have been shipped out". It doesn't feel like a well-organised museum to me. I went to the HST anniversary event there which was very popular but it wasn't even promoted - it was almost as if the museum was embarrassed to be catering to enthusiasts even if it meant more people through the door! The whole issue of de-accessioning items in the NC, while probably not the greatest crime to rail history in the grand scheme of things, is more of a problem because of what it represents in the NRM as a whole. I suspect it'll keep happening
That said, I don't think that's the NRM's fault. Our museums are under threat - the government is cutting the subsidies to them just like they are to the railways, and I believe this is part of a wider plan to eventually encourage museums to go back to entry charges if they are left long enough to it (as part of the classic Tory principle that those who use it should pay for it). If anything, we should support the NRM as a matter of principle
That said, I don't think the Soyuz capsule being there is a good idea - in the same way the big wheel wasn't. The reason for this is the NRM will always have a fairly fixed audience regardless of how it's set up - it's one of those things which you're either interested in or you're not. There's no point catering for people who don't want to go there, because even if they do end up going there (e.g. as part of a family or school trip), you need that baseline enthusiasm to engage with something. You can make it as plain and accessible as you like but if people don't care, they're not going to engage with it. Putting a spacecraft on display there to get a few more people in there who wouldn't otherwise have gone in as a short-term boost is purely a cynical move to inflate the figures, and I don't think it really proves anything. It just means you get stuck in a cycle of having to do this again and again to keep the figures up
But then we live in a world where numbers are all important and mean far more than they should, because it's all about meeting targets and self-preservation. I get why it's happening. I just don't think it's the right strategy