National Railway Museum - National Collection

National Collection

There are approximately 280 rail vehicles in the National Collection, with around 100 being at York at any one time and the remainder divided between Locomotion at Shildon and other museums and heritage railways. The earliest are wagonway vehicles of about 1815. The permanent display includes "Palaces on Wheels", a collection of Royal Train saloons from Queen Victoria's early trains through to those used by Queen Elizabeth II up to the 1970s, among them some of the first rail vehicles to be set aside for preservation. Other key exhibits normally to be seen at York include the 1846 Furness Railway No. 3 "Coppernob" locomotive, and the more modern express passenger steam locomotives London and North Eastern Railway Class A3 No. 4472 Flying Scotsman (added to the collection in 2004), its streamlined sister Class A4 No. 4468 Mallard and London, Midland and Scottish Railway Princess Coronation Class No. 6229 Duchess of Hamilton. Flying Scotsman is among the exhibits intended for operation on the National Rail network from time to time.

The museum has imported several major vehicles for display: the Chinese Class KF7 4-8-4 locomotive donated in 1981 was built in Britain and the Wagons-Lits sleeping car donated in 1980 had been used on the Paris-London Night Ferry service. The single exception to the rule of exhibits associated with Britain is the Japanese 0 Series Shinkansen leading vehicle which was donated to the museum by the West Japan Railway Company in 2001 and which now forms part of an award-winning display, and is the only Shinkansen vehicle on exhibit outside Japan.

Rail vehicles on display are exchanged from time to time with other organisations, and examples of new-build stock from the current industry sometimes visit the museum for short periods.

Other physically large exhibits are the Stockton and Darlington Railway Gaunless Bridge and several stationary winding engines used on railway inclines.

The many other two and three-dimensional elements of the collection include signalling equipment, road vehicles, ship models, posters, drawings and other artwork, tickets, nameplates, staff uniforms, clocks, watches, furniture and equipment from railway companies' hotels, refreshment rooms and offices (including company seals) and a wide range of models, some of which are operated on the museum's O scale model railway (originated in 1982).