Developments in The 21st Century
In order to provide step-free access to the Workshop Gallery, the Museum Inclinator was constructed. Besides its primary function, this also served to demonstrate the workings of a funicular railway. To that end its workings are exposed in the style of a larger open air funicular railway, rather than being concealed in the fabric of the building as is more normal for intramural lifts. Unfortunately, due to lack of spare parts, it is no longer working, and there are no plans to repair it.
2004 saw several major developments at the museum. Several railway anniversaries were celebrated by a major "Railfest". Another took place from 25–30 May 2008 with a Sixties theme. The Locomotion museum was opened at Shildon, County Durham providing undercover collection care facilities for more rail vehicles (particularly freight wagons) from the museum's collection. In addition, the museum had a high-profile campaign, supported by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, to purchase Flying Scotsman which arrived at the Museum as the climax of Railfest.
The first stage of a new centre providing easy access to the museum’s Library and Archives, called "Search Engine", opened at the end of 2007.
From 18 July to 23 August 2008, a popular new venture was the staging by York Theatre Royal at the Museum of the play of E. Nesbit's The Railway Children, awarded five stars in The Guardian. Following this success, it was repeated in 2009, from 23 July to 3 September, and the museum provided locomotives for subsequent performances at Waterloo International station and in Toronto.
Major plans under the name "NRM+" were made for refurbishing the Great Hall display, for which a preliminary Heritage Lottery Fund contribution was announced in 2009, and seeking potential partners for a further outhousing project. There are other partnerships for development of the museum estate and the land around it (much owned by Network Rail) as "York Central" but the economic situation during 2009 put these particular plans in abeyance. The NRM+ project was cancelled in April 2011 due to lack of success in assembling the funding package. However, major changes to the displays in the Station Hall began later in 2011.
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“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)
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Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.”
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