The Friends of the National Railway Museum

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The Friends of the National Railway Museum

FNRM was formed in 1977 to support the National Railway Museum.

We help to fund the restoration of exhibits in the National Collection, the acquisition of new artefacts, and other projects that would otherwise not be possible.

04/09/2026

On display at Station Hall at the National Railway Museum, York, is West Coast Joint Stock (the London & North Western Railway and the Caledonian Railway working together) Travelling Post Office coach number 186.

Built at Wolverton in 1885, it ran on the West Coast Main Line between London and Scotland until withdrawal in 1934. It’s 42 feet long and finished in LNWR livery with royal insignia. It had a detachable letterbox where urgent letters could be posted before departure for the price of an extra halfpenny (½d) stamp. Inside, it was gas lit with different sized sorting pigeonholes for sorters to put letters, parcels and newspapers. Behind the collecting nets was a sliding hatch which was opened at specific points for mailbags being picked up and caught into the moveable nets, or tied to detachable arms to be dropped off into trackside fixed nets en route. Mailbags were enclosed in tough leather pouches for this process. A small chimney from the sealing stove for wax seals is on the left of the image. Rooflights gave some natural light, but these trains usually ran through the night. It is a gangwayed vehicle, but the gangway to the next vehicle is offset.

Words: Mike Peart
Image: NRM

02/09/2026

One of the National Collection that we haven’t seen around for a while is centenarian E850/850/30850 “Lord Nelson”. It has been on the Mid Hants Railway (Watercress Line) and is currently awaiting overhaul there.

Designed by Southern Railway (SR) Chief Mechanical Engineer Richard Maunsell, “Lord Nelson” is the first of a class of sixteen powerful locomotives named after seagoing personalities. Built at Eastleigh Works and intended for working heavier boat trains, it entered service on the SR 100 years ago in August 1926 having been built for just under £16,000. It was withdrawn in August 1962 with 1,349,617 miles on the clock and had since added more mileage working in preservation on the main line and heritage lines until its boiler certificate ran out. It’s the only one of the class preserved, and is a four cylinder 4-6-0 with 6ft 7 inch diameter driving wheels and Walschaerts valve gear.

The image shows “Lord Nelson” on the down main line at Southall, Middlesex with a Home Counties Railway Club special from Paddington to Swindon and return on 24th June 1962.

Image and words: Mike Peart

31/08/2026

Fortunately, times do change. Writing in the “Railway Magazine” in 1906, Charles Rous-Marten (1842 – 1908) [the man who had timed the long-disputed “City of Truro” Plymouth to Bristol speed record run in 1904] said, “Yet again my tear-bottle is called into requisition to provide a regretful tear for more locomotive veterans that have passed to their rest......I fear it is hopeless to expect locomotive superintendents to occupy too limited space with the locomotive ghosts of former days......A few years ago a movement was set on foot to establish a sort of mausoleum for defunct locomotives - a “Railway Museum” it was to be called. A strong committee was formed, of which I had the honour to be the chosen chairman, and a good deal of preliminary work was done. But I soon ascertained that there was not the remotest probability of our receiving the slightest assistance from either the Government or the railways.” One suggestion was that the museum should be sited at Alexandra Palace in north London which was served by the Great Northern and Great Eastern railway companies. The first railway museum open to the general public at York was established by the LNER in 1928.

29/08/2026

A real treat in the Museum today 🎺🎶

28/08/2026

A survivor! In January 1991, the historic Severn Bridge Junction signal box at Shrewsbury was listed as a Grade 2 structure. It opened in 1904 and is now the largest operational mechanical lever signal box left in the world.

From 1862, Shrewsbury became the joint responsibility of the Great Western Railway(GWR) and the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) and had a joint Superintendent in charge. The 20th century signal box is a three storey building with a brick base, timber upper floor and gable ends with a slate roof. The box has a LNWR 180 lever tumbler frame arranged in two sections, 93 levers of which are still currently in use to signal around 280 trains a day. The levers dating from 1903 have a catch handle with a stirrup release to move them making it a two-hand job (not forgetting the duster). It has a mixture of LNWR, GWR and British Railways block instruments on the block shelf. The complicated locking mechanism is below the signalling floor. A major refurbishment project was carried out for Network Rail in 2020/21 to ensure the box can keep on working safely and effectively at this busy junction.

Image: Network Rail
Words: Mike Peart

26/08/2026

One hundred years ago on a Sunday in May 1926 during the General Strike across Britain, the choice of subject for a church sermon caused real controversy. The Rev K Crisford who was a curate at St Mark’s Church, Swindon (the ‘Railway Church’ just over the main line to Bristol and South Wales from the Works) preached a sermon against the Government and railway companies. He spoke in favour of the strike and the strikers. The sermon caused outrage as a lot of the congregation were Great Western Railway managers, foremen and others looking for promotion who hadn’t been on strike. They were so offended that they took their custom to Christ Church, Cricklade Street instead, and put in a formal complaint about the curate. He was soon transferred out of Swindon! GWR Chief Mechanical Engineer F W Hawksworth was in the choir and a regular attender at St Mark’s Church. The church is shown on the left in this 1962 picture of Swindon pannier tank 3739 passing with an up Class 9 ballast train.

Image and words: Mike Peart

24/08/2026

When the South Devon Railway reached Paignton in August 1859, the event was celebrated with the baking of an extremely large pudding. Around the time, It seems to have been a tradition in this Devon seaside town to celebrate important events with the baking and distribution of large puddings.

The pudding for the opening of the single line broad gauge railway was made in eight separate parts and then assembled. When it was put together it weighed a ton and a half. The ingredients were 573 pounds of flour, 382 pounds of raisins, 191 pounds of currants, 191 pounds of bread, 382 pounds of suet, 360 quarts of milk, 320 lemons, 95 pounds of sugar, 144 nutmegs and a large quantity of eggs. These ingredients cost almost £50 – around £5,400 at today’s prices. The actual recipe wasn’t given, but the baking took place in several shops’ kitchens. Eight horses were used to haul the pudding to the town green where a celebration dinner was held. The post-pudding image shows Paignton station a hundred years ago with a ‘Saint’ class locomotive and train in the platform.

Image: R S Carpenter
Words: Mike Peart

21/08/2026

Currently on display outside at the National Railway Museum, York is the famous Borough Market Junction signal box from South London. It was built in 1895 for the South Eastern Railway and at first housed a conventional lever frame.

It controlled the three-way junction bottleneck with lines from London Bridge, Cannon Street and Charing Cross/Blackfriars where they converged. It was originally the first floor with a good view built on top of a brick locking equipment room, and was decommissioned in 1976 when the London Bridge power box was opened. It was said to be the busiest box in Britain with up to 100 trains an hour (about one every 40 seconds at rush hour), and it was worked by two men for the early and late shifts, and one man overnight. The Westinghouse style K power lever frame with 35 small levers (23 for signals, 11 for points and one spare) was fitted in 1928 and was an intermediate step between the old mechanical frames and electrical push-button types. Funds from the Friends of the NRM have helped towards the restoration of this historic building.

Image: Emma Allison
Words: Mike Peart

19/08/2026

On display at the National Railway Museum, York, is this pre-1923 London Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) poster promoting their excursions to the Sussex towns of Hastings and Eastbourne. Both were popular seaside resorts at the time, and still are, although you won’t get there on Mondays or any other day of the week from London for 25p anymore!

Hastings, one of the historic Cinque Ports, in 1954 was claiming in a British Railways holiday guide that it had two million visitors every year, with beaches, tepid salt water swimming baths, parks, gardens and woodland. There were “corridor steam expresses from Charing Cross and electric expresses from Victoria via Lewes”. Eastbourne boasted a sand and shingle beach and claimed “you will need every minute of your holiday to see and do all that Eastbourne has to offer”. In 1954, British Railways were saying that it could be reached in under 90 minutes from London in “fast Pullman trains”. In both places in 1954, the hotels offered “hot and cold running water in all bedrooms”!

Image: Emma Allison
Words: Mike Peart

17/08/2026

On display in Station Hall at the National Railway Museum, York, is a Great Western Railway platform trolley. Various types of trolleys were used by all pre-nationalisation companies at their termini and on through station platforms to move passengers’ luggage, parcels, mailbags and other items. Handling the mails and contents of parcels vans needed a lot of carrying space, and caged trolleys were sometimes formed into trains on the platforms hauled by tugs.

After nationalisation, British Railways continued the practice and came up with the ‘BRUTE’ (British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment). Platform barrows and trolleys if handled carelessly sometimes littered platforms and presented passengers with obstacles. Trolleys sometimes ran away and fell on the track – this example from 1946 explains the hazard. “Early on the morning of 5th February 1946, an empty mail platform trolley fell onto the up line at Bath Spa station. Before it could be lifted back onto the platform, an up goods train ran over the trolley smashing it to pieces. Parts of the trolley were found 300 yards down the line towards Chippenham. There was, however, no delay to following services.” Accidents happen in the best-regulated railway companies!

Image: Emma Allison
Words: Mike Peart

Address

Leeman Road
York
YO264XJ

Telephone

+441904636874

Website

https://www.nrmfriends.org.uk/

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