Engines

No visits to the home today or tomorrow either :( Following up a tip from our taxi driver, we decided to go to the Hopetown railway museum in Darlington. As I’m sure all of my readers know, this year is the 200th anniversary of the first railway to carry passengers, the Stockton-Darlington line. The museum has been specially renovated for the occasion, and they’ve done a brilliant job. We arrived around 2 pm and left just before chucking out time at five.

The museum is housed in an old railway station and locomotive sheds. They have a permanent collection of artefacts including engines and carriages, and for this special year have the loan from the National Railway Museum of Locomotion 1, the engine that pulled the first passenger service, driven by George Stephenson himself, plus a couple of other notable engines.

The displays are excellent, with lots of interaction and a very modern focus on encouraging people to share on social media. At various points the story is told by life-size videos of various railway employees and you can take selfies with them. There’s even a shed where a new steam engine is being built, although sadly no-one was working on it today. Highly recommended if you’re nearby — there are special events and exhibitions between now and November. Entrance is free, yes really! We enjoyed it so much that besides buying refreshments in the cafe and some goodies from the gift shop, we gave them a ten quid donation.

We had a short rest at home, then out for swim and gym, plus a drink in the bar afterwards,