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National Railway Museum to "dumb down" ?

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Justin Smith

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I'm not sure whether this should go in the Heritage section or not, but I feel it's of such importance that it needs maximum exposure, and in any case, it is the National Rail Museum.
The Dec issue of the RWM reports that the NRM is to "turn away from enthusiasts". The museum is to become less of a traction display and more of "an interpretive centre". The plan is to remove many of the locos from the Great Hall and replace them with "themed areas" ! Incredibly the sectioned steam loco Ellerman Lines (possibly one of the most interesting exhibits) is also to be removed. In addition the plan is to introduce a single entrance and one way traffic ! !
Paul Bowers, in charge of the changes, states "it's no longer just about the locomotives".
I beg to differ. It is about the locomotives. If you want to look at things on screens you can get that on the internet, when I go to a museum I want to experience something I can't get on the internet.
What's more, in order to accomplish this vandalism the NRM will have to close from the end of 2011 to mid 2013, and furthermore, how much is all this costing ?
This is part of a trend to "dumb down" museums which should be resisted. It's obviously aimed at kids, but the point is, who pays for bleedin' museums anyway ? Whether it's in entry fees, in your rates or in your taxes, it's the adults who pay so how fair is it to aim the places at the kids ! And anyway, surely it's patronising to imply that kids have no brains, most kids, including myself "when I were a lad", liked the NRM as it is.
The world's gone mad.

See post with updated info including Paul Bowers comments.
 
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tbtc

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vandalism

:roll:

Gosh, imagine a museum trying to attract a new generation to be interested in railways - what are they thinking?

Sorry, but the static displays aren't going to compete for attention with today's generation. I was at the Science Museum a few weeks ago which has managed the right balance between "interactive" and "dry" - something for everyone.

Surely its right that the NRM is trying to attract members of the public and not just "gricers"?
 

Fred26

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How can you get interactive displays on the internet? Surely that's something not available on the internet.
 

jopsuk

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Astonishingly Justin, kids today have different interests to kids when you werre young, just as the generation previous to you would have had quite different interests. The world hasn't gone mad- it has moved on. I've not seen the article, but presumably they have plans for what to do with the locos they remove- they've already got one "sattelite" site at Shildon- will this be expanded, or will there be a new site started to spread the natioanl collection further?
Whilst kids may not pay for entry, they're always accomponied by adults- I'd wager that the majority of adults visiting do so with children- and may well not go if they didn't have kids with them. Your argument that it isn't the kids that pay therefore it shouldn't be aimed at them is very, very foolish.
 

Justin Smith

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The NRM is doing fine as it is.
When I go to a museum, any museum, I want to see things, anything else, even, to a certain extent, reading about them, is something you can do at home, either from a book or on the internet. My wife feels exactly the same way, though the type of museums she`s primarily interested in are often not the same as mine !
But the fact remains that us adults are paying for the bleedin` museums ! How fair is it that more and more of them are dumbing down and aiming at kids ? And in any case, I think it`s patronising to children to assume they`re only interested in playing with interactive diaplays, some of them do have a brain.
 

cuccir

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But the fact remains that us adults are paying for the bleedin' museums !

Yes, bloody kids bleeding from decent tax payers. When will they learn to go get a job? :roll:

In all seriousness though, I'd like to hold judgement. Interpretive and themed zones does not mean less intelligent if done well - it just means using the displays to create a better-contextualised, more informative museum. I've been to 'traditional' style museums which are great, but some which are hopeless - what's 'intelligent' about a series of objects with no explanation or point to them? The NRM at the moment is, quite frankly, an average museum - the objects in it are great but as a museum it offers little extra explanatory or informative material. If I didn't already hold an interest in the subject, I'd have found it much less engaging. Anyway, I've not seen the full details so I wouldn't like to comment in too great a detail.

As an aside, the NRM has two sites, Shildon and York. York is much higher profile, so why not shift that to a more interactive and child-based experience, and make Shildon a more enthusiast-friendly site?
 

Geezertronic

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I am guessing you and your wife are 30 somethings? Whilst I agree that the NRM changes would affect the mid and older generation I have to admit that it would make it more appealing to my kids if they added more interactive stuff.

We went to the Tyseley Open Day a couple of weeks back and I was having a great time looking at the steam trains but the kids (7 and 10) got bored - once you've seen one steam train you've seen them all at that age.

Same with "spotting" if you like. When my kids are at their music lessons, I'll drive to Birmingham International (which is nearby) and spend 40 mins watching whatever goes past. The kids would get bored easily.

These days attractions have to change their philosophy to attract the newer generation of visitors. I guess kids these days are spoilt with games consoles so walking around boring museums looking at stuff they cannot touch (half the time) is not the done thing anymore.
 

jopsuk

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Thing is that interactive displays can be a really good way of educating- quite the opposite from "dumbing down". For instance, at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, the "Airspace" hanger, home to the main collection (including Concorde, Vulcan, TSR/2 etc) has a large "interactive" area on a balcony/mezzazine. This includes hands on demonstations of key things such as how wings work, how jet turbines work etc- but along side the things that kids can understand are wordy displays that go into more depth. I've no idea what the NRM will do, but I'd imagine they'll have stuff on how steam engines work, possibly how diesels work, on signalling etc. Educational. Not dumbing down. Just age appropriate to the people that are the main cause of the majority of paying adults visiting.

(anyway, the whole basis of taxation is not based on paying soley for things that you actually use- after all, you pay for the Fire Brigae but hope that you never, ever have to call on their services. Somewhere in the US there was a recent case where the local fire service, a private enterprise, did not put out a house fire as that household were behind on their payments. They stood and watched it burn.)
 

starrymarkb

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I'll second the Science Museum - I loved Launch Pad and the flight equivalent as a 8 year old!
 

theblackwatch

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Railways aren't just about locomotives.

Totally agree - this is a RAILWAY museum, not a LOCOMOTIVE museum. I keep seeing people witter on about the museum not having a Class XYZ, but why should they, they don't have examples of every type of coach or wagon. The NRM's ambition is:

The National Railway Museum will be a world-class museum where people from all walks of life will choose to explore how railways help shape our world.

Merely a collection of engines will not show this, there so much more to explore including the social history which needs to be explained.
 

Justin Smith

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I am guessing you and your wife are 30 somethings? Whilst I agree that the NRM changes would affect the mid and older generation I have to admit that it would make it more appealing to my kids if they added more interactive stuff.

We went to the Tyseley Open Day a couple of weeks back and I was having a great time looking at the steam trains but the kids (7 and 10) got bored - once you've seen one steam train you've seen them all at that age.

Same with "spotting" if you like. When my kids are at their music lessons, I'll drive to Birmingham International (which is nearby) and spend 40 mins watching whatever goes past. The kids would get bored easily.

These days attractions have to change their philosophy to attract the newer generation of visitors. I guess kids these days are spoilt with games consoles so walking around boring museums looking at stuff they cannot touch (half the time) is not the done thing anymore.

Surely that depends on the age of the kids ?
I thought they already had a play area type thing for young kids ?
As for the older ones, are we really saying that kids these days are incapable of concentration or even interets for longer than two minutes unless beiong stimulated by computer games, or their equivalent ? If that`s the case we`ve got far bigger problems than the NRM, or in fact museums any/all of them........

I don`t actually think that kids (or in fact adults) change down the ages as much as people think, other than the fact all children are spoilt these days, certainly compared to what we used to have only 20 or 30 years ago.
 

Daimler

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I'm not entirely sure why you think the NRM will be 'dumbing down' - surely a museum that doesn't just display a load of exhibits but instead sets aside space for interpretation of the exhibits that are on display and explains their place in a wider historical context is doing quite the opposite of 'dumbing down' - helping the visitor to use the exhibits to understand why the world is the way it is today?

A mere traction display couldn't really call itself, as The Black Watch has pointed out above, a railway museum.

For what it's worth, I'm not absolutely convinced by the plans as they stand (boarding over the turntable, for instance, I believe is a major error - people really do like to watch it in action) but I do support them in principle.
 

Greenback

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I don't really see how bringing any museum in line with the modern world will necessarily dumb it down. Even at my age, it is rather tedious visiting an old fashioned museum fileld with dusty exhibits and faded old cards with a few lines of description on them.

If technology can be used to impart a greater amount and depth of knowledge and information, surely that is to be welcomed? I think I agree with Daimler, more interpretation cannot be called dumbing down!
 

MrC

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TBH having been to the NRM for the first time this year I think 'becoming less of a traction display' is actually a very good thing. There's better opportunities to see and discover various types of traction outside the NRM both on the net and, more importantly, at the various preservation lines. As a 50+ y.o. I personally found the static displays in the Great Hall a bit of a non-event - a lot of it was only duplicating what's available elsewhere (and a lot closer to home!). There should be more to museums than static displays and hopefully this development will fill out the gaps and allow the NRM to offer what the preservation societies can't.

Oh, and according to http://www.nrm.org.uk/AboutUs/nrmplus.aspx the NRM isn't closing during the redevelopment.
 

90019

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I don't really see how bringing any museum in line with the modern world will necessarily dumb it down. Even at my age, it is rather tedious visiting an old fashioned museum fileld with dusty exhibits and faded old cards with a few lines of description on them.

If technology can be used to impart a greater amount and depth of knowledge and information, surely that is to be welcomed? I think I agree with Daimler, more interpretation cannot be called dumbing down!

Don't forget that Justin Smith is on a personal crusade of complaining to try and make sure everything railway related in this country stays in the past.
 

yorksrob

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I think it's unrealistic to expect any museum to stick with the same thing for ever. Whatever your views of interactive displays, the NRM still has the excellent "Search Engine" which has kept a pretty long-in-the-tooth hardened enthusiast like me entertained on many afternoons.
 

YorkshireBear

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Sounds to me like there making a huge improvement. Maybe boarding over turntable isnt the best idea theyve ever had (if true i didnt see it on website?).

Kids these days couldnt care less about looking at a stood still steam engine they want more and the intereactive exhibits they are planning in my opinion will make a huge difference to kids interest. There is some interesting themes there. Only one i can see missing is something like the future as in what we could expect or need from the rest of the century.

And very much agree that it is a railway museum not a loco museum !
 

sprinterguy

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I do think it’s a bit sad that the simple awe and wonder of standing and looking up at a steam loco isn’t sufficient to hold the interest of small children or adults alike in many cases these days, and that in this technologically driven world many would rather push buttons and stare at a screen than examine the locomotive or item of rolling stock the interactive display concerns. When I used to be taken to the National Railway Museum on occasional days out between the ages of 7 and 10, the simple joy of seeing so many well presented locomotives in the Great Hall was enough for me (It still is now)!

BUT I also recognise that times change. It is the regular Mr. And Mrs. Bloggs and their 2.4 kids that provide the mainstay of the NRMs’ patronage, and other museums like it. And to the casual visitor who isn’t up on the technical side of trains and railways, walking into a vast display of static locomotives and carriages with little explanation of what each of them is about could well be completely bewildering. We are now in an age where everyone is expected to have all the information at their fingertips all the time, and the National Railway Museum needs to adapt to reflect this change and cater for current expectations on the wealth of information that should be provided. The NRM needs to keep its’ displays interesting for the “average” visitor. In many cases the option will still be there, you would hope, to look around and examine the locos from ground level the old fashioned way, for those, such as myself, who want nothing more than the simple pleasure of being amongst locos and rolling stock.

Although, top marks to the NRM for a couple of truly stupid ideas:
1.Boarding over the turntable: Surely if the NRM is looking to diversify what the visitor sees, then retaining the turntable in an operational form should be top of the list, as it represents a very important part of railway operations, and can offer considerably more than a static locomotive can.
2.Shifting “Ellerman Lines”elsewhere: It’s a full size cross-section of how a steam locomotive works: How more interactive can you get?
 

tbtc

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Paranoid diatribes about "the good old days" aside, I look forward to the day when I can take my kids to the NRM and they'll say "what is that daddy, next to Mallard" and I can reply "that's a Pacer, from the dark old days - these cattle trucks used to be the main trains in Northern England and the museum have ensured that one is kept here as a warning to train builders in future. If we do not learn from history, we shall be compelled to relive it...".

Sadly this day may be far off, but it will come.
 

Daimler

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Sounds to me like there making a huge improvement. Maybe boarding over turntable isnt the best idea theyve ever had (if true i didnt see it on website?).

Kids these days couldnt care less about looking at a stood still steam engine they want more and the intereactive exhibits they are planning in my opinion will make a huge difference to kids interest. There is some interesting themes there. Only one i can see missing is something like the future as in what we could expect or need from the rest of the century.

And very much agree that it is a railway museum not a loco museum !

Certainly it was mentioned in Steam Railway's article on the refurbishment. :(
 

YorkshireBear

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Certainly it was mentioned in Steam Railway's article on the refurbishment. :(

Well that is a very bad decision, a movign turntable is taht no intereactive enough for you?

and also the cross section train showing the boiler and tubes? surely that fits right in with what they are trying to achieve? it makes very little sense :/ some good ideas but some i think are a bit dodgy.


I do i hope you can still look at exhibits but i think the station hall is remaining as it is? and the works and warehouse?

was there any info on these anywhere?
 

rb311

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Perhaps the reason that the museum is going to move steam locos out of the main hall is that they are ashamed of them.

Railways today are a very pale shadow of the glory days when engines like Mallard were running, when they were the peak of technology and the fastest way to travel.

By shuffling out the reminders of better times, it better prepares the visitor for the onslaught of mediocrity that is modern railways.

And to my mind the only reason to preserve a pacer is to learn from mistakes from the past and never repeat them in the future...
 

tbtc

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And to my mind the only reason to preserve a pacer is to learn from mistakes from the past and never repeat them in the future...

Hence my comment.

However, it'd be a shame if we only preserved the "elite" locomotives.

The railways are just as much about coal wagons, class 321s, mk2 coaches etc as they are about Flying Scotsman

Maybe the National Rail Museum should also have a Fraser Eagle coach preserved in aspic, as a warning from the bad old days :lol:
 

AndyJB

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I do think it’s a bit sad that the simple awe and wonder of standing and looking up at a steam loco isn’t sufficient to hold the interest of small children or adults alike in many cases these days, and that in this technologically driven world many would rather push buttons and stare at a screen than examine the locomotive or item of rolling stock the interactive display concerns. When I used to be taken to the National Railway Museum on occasional days out between the ages of 7 and 10, the simple joy of seeing so many well presented locomotives in the Great Hall was enough for me (It still is now)!

BUT I also recognise that times change. It is the regular Mr. And Mrs. Bloggs and their 2.4 kids that provide the mainstay of the NRMs’ patronage, and other museums like it. And to the casual visitor who isn’t up on the technical side of trains and railways, walking into a vast display of static locomotives and carriages with little explanation of what each of them is about could well be completely bewildering. We are now in an age where everyone is expected to have all the information at their fingertips all the time, and the National Railway Museum needs to adapt to reflect this change and cater for current expectations on the wealth of information that should be provided. The NRM needs to keep its’ displays interesting for the “average” visitor. In many cases the option will still be there, you would hope, to look around and examine the locos from ground level the old fashioned way, for those, such as myself, who want nothing more than the simple pleasure of being amongst locos and rolling stock.

Although, top marks to the NRM for a couple of truly stupid ideas:
1.Boarding over the turntable: Surely if the NRM is looking to diversify what the visitor sees, then retaining the turntable in an operational form should be top of the list, as it represents a very important part of railway operations, and can offer considerably more than a static locomotive can.
2.Shifting “Ellerman Lines”elsewhere: It’s a full size cross-section of how a steam locomotive works: How more interactive can you get?

Where is Ellerman Lines going anyway?
 

sprinterguy

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Where is Ellerman Lines going anyway?

Tbh, I’d take it with a pinch of salt that it’ll move anywhere. I don’t reckon that all of the NRMs’ proposed changes will come to fruition, but nonetheless even just the desire to move Ellerman Lines seems like a daft move, hence why I mentioned it.
 

AndyJB

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Tbh, I’d take it with a pinch of salt that it’ll move anywhere. I don’t reckon that all of the NRMs’ proposed changes will come to fruition, but nonetheless even just the desire to move Ellerman Lines seems like a daft move, hence why I mentioned it.
Completely agree - it IS a daft move. It isn't like the loco can be sent to a heritage railway to haul anything. It is essentially a museum piece and (probably) always will be, and I am left wondering what exactly will happen to it if it doesn't go back out on display.
 

Geezertronic

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Perhaps the reason that the museum is going to move steam locos out of the main hall is that they are ashamed of them.

Railways today are a very pale shadow of the glory days when engines like Mallard were running, when they were the peak of technology and the fastest way to travel.

By shuffling out the reminders of better times, it better prepares the visitor for the onslaught of mediocrity that is modern railways.

And to my mind the only reason to preserve a pacer is to learn from mistakes from the past and never repeat them in the future...

Isn't the APT in the main hall? :D Or is it the HST prototype?
 

rb311

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Isn't the APT in the main hall? Or is it the HST prototype?

mmm the APT, that great British transport revolution.. I can't turn for seeing them rushing up and down the UK's railway lines.

HST.. Bang up to date that is...Bit ironic really, going to museum to see a train you just travelled on to get there.
 
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