National railway Museum York (National Railway Museum York)

Member Name: Daisy

Product:	National Railway Museum York
Date:	10/08/01 (237 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lots to do

Disadvantages: expensive restaurant

First of all I would like to say that I am not a ‘museum person’. However on a recent trip to York with two children it seemed that our visit wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the National Railway Museum.

The museum is easy to find, being located alongside York’s main railway station. The place is huge and is housed on two sites on either side of the road, which are accessible via an underpass (solely for the museum’s use). On entering you come to The Great Hall which is home to over 100 trains/engines. These range from the Mallard to a Japanese bullet train. I basically knew very little about trains/railways before visiting but there is a great deal of information in all kinds of formats and plenty of staff on hand to answer any questions.

The Great Hall is also home to an area called Play Train. This is an activity centre for children where they can make hats, flags etc, naturally all relating to trains. More complex activities such as badge making were priced at 50p. This area was excellent and seemed to appeal to children of all ages, my only suggestion for improvement would have been seats nearby for the weary parents!

After crossing the underpass you reach the Station Hall where the emphasis is on the interior of trains throughout history. This included a replica of the Royal Train and examples of first second and third class carriages from the early 1900’s.

From The Station Hall you then came to the outside attractions. Here there were a number of things, which would have kept us entertained if the weather had been better. There is an old fashioned fair ground (at an extra charge per ride), picnic area, children’s play area and steam train rides which left every hour (no charge).

There was also an excellent area hidden around the corner – Interactive Learning Zone. From the outside this looks like an old-fashioned railway station, but inside it is full of activi
ties for kids and adults alike. There were lots of ‘hands-on’ demonstrations such as working the signals, brass rubbing of train plates etc. My daughter was particularly interested in a computer program where you built your own railway, making lots of decisions along the way and seeing if the outcome was profitable (it was in her case!).

For anyone visiting be warned that although there is a snack bar and small restaurant prices tend towards the exorbitant – a small sultana scone was priced at £1.80! In spite of this the restaurant appeared to get filled up very quickly and on leaving The Station Hall about 1.30pm we noticed that they were not letting anyone else in. However there is no problem with eating a packed lunch here and picnic areas are provided both inside and out.

The National railway Museum is open most days from 10.00 till 18.00. Admission is £7.50 for adults and free for children and those over 60. The car park also charges £3 but this allows parking all day (a pretty good deal in York!)

Overall we all had a good time and stayed for about 3 hours. My son’s only disappointment in the place was that there was no Thomas the Tank Engine. I later found out that they have special ‘Thomas’ exhibitions but only once or twice a year, oh well I guess we’ll just have to go back for that!

Summary: