The National Railway Museum holds Britain’s largest single collection of historic railway material.  It has its origins in the collections assembled by railway companies in the mid nineteenth century, and in the rich body of material accumulated by the Science Museum. The Museum opened in York in 1975 and has continued to develop the collections to cover all areas of railway history, encompassing a wide variety of material from unique icons to everyday objects, revealing the importance of railways and their impact on the human and physical environment. 

This tour will take you behind the scenes into the Museum Workshop, where our team of engineers and conservators help to maintain the collections in good condition and into Search Engine to see how former railway offices and workshops have been converted into high-grade controlled storage for over 300 archive collections and 22 000 books, see how the NRM stores and manages its massive photographic, poster and art collections, and see some of the treasures from the NRM’s archive collections, including eye-witness accounts from the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and the Rainhill Trials, rare Bradshaw’s timetables, intricate engineering drawings, historic tickets, and much more. 

There is no charge for this tour. Numbers will be limited to 25 people, so please register in advance. You can do this at any time before the Congress by emailing tours@ichstm2013.com with your details; or you can sign up in person at the Congress Events Desk.

You will need to arrange your own travel to York. A regular direct rail service operates from Manchester Oxford Road and Piccadilly Stations.

For more information, see the website: www.nrm.org.uk/