There's another "York"

No scrapple, but a full English breakfast at a local B&B is every bit as healthy.

Old thread, but I thought I'd share some pics anyway. I'm at York now. What a wonderful museum!

Great idea, this would be cool for any train museum that features steam trains!

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!

@West Side Joe posted:

Old thread, but I thought I'd share some pics anyway. I'm at York now. What a wonderful museum!

Great photos, especially that one.  Really jealous - can't wait to get back.  Hope you got to see the "warehouse" area where they have stuff stacked high and deep.  IMO, the best railroad museum I've visited.  Last time I was there, staff members wore shirts with "Explainer" on the back - sadly, they weren't for sale.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Great idea, this would be cool for any train museum that features steam trains!

The National RR Park in Scranton has something similar ... maybe not quite as detailed though.

I could use one of those "Explainer" shirts. My daughter, who was the photographer and also the instigator of my visit to York, says I must have explained the workings of the valve gear and pistons to her at least four times! 😆

@Jim Policastro posted:

But, would they have scrapple in York, UK?

Jim

No, but the food is still good! My son and I ate at this pub. The National Railway Museum is AMAZING……but so is the city itself. Whereas, London is a modern city, the medieval walls around York still stand and the cathedral is also magnificent.

Peter

Here are a few shots of the museum. I was especially interested in their exhibit on military hospital trans from the Western Front in WWI. They talked about triage and how they could rapidly remove the wounded to the coast then then to hospitals in southern England.

A few shots of the city......the cathedral, the city gates and the battlements

This is outside the city walls where the main railway station resides. It's a little over 2 hours from London by train.

We ate at "The Golden Fleece" the first day and felt rather "fleeced": crooked floors and walls, cramped dank medieval atmosphere, overworked staff, so-so food and high prices. We ate at "The White Swan" the second day: food was much better and a bigger selection, yet lower in price; the place had atmosphere but also charm, nice staff and pleasant surroundings.

@Putnam Division posted:

Here are a few shots of the museum. I was especially interested in their exhibit on military hospital trans from the Western Front in WWI. They talked about triage and how they could rapidly remove the wounded to the coast then then to hospitals in southern England.

A few shots of the city......the cathedral, the city gates and the battlements

This is outside the city walls where the main railway station resides. It's a little over 2 hours from London by train.

How recently were you there?

@Putnam Division posted:

No, but the food is still good! My son and I ate at this pub. The National Railway Museum is AMAZING……but so is the city itself. Whereas, London is a modern city, the medieval walls around York still stand and the cathedral is also magnificent.

Peter

@West Side Joe posted:

We ate at "The Golden Fleece" the first day and felt rather "fleeced": crooked floors and walls, cramped dank medieval atmosphere, overworked staff, so-so food and high prices. We ate at "The White Swan" the second day: food was much better and a bigger selection, yet lower in price; the place had atmosphere but also charm, nice staff and pleasant surroundings.

Keep rubbing it in!

York is probably #1 on my list of places to visit.  It would be great even without the railway museum.  Is Purpleman (street performer) still active? 

Did either of you make it to Swindon?  (I've never been - it's on the list.)  If so, pics and report?

Not me. My daughter has been looking up outstanding railway museums in other countries, and the "Cité du Train" in France is ranked way up there...

@Jim Policastro posted:

But, would they have scrapple in York, UK?

Nope.

But I'd GLADLY enjoy a good olde English breakfast of bangers and mash!...

(FYI..."Bangers" = Sausages; can be any meat, but pork is most common.  Mash = Mashed potatoes; but NOT the packet of powder dumped in boiling water!!!. And the onion gravy is an epicurean delight made heroic when laced with pork drippings.

"Bangers and Mash" has variations depending on the time of the meal.  It's generally a pub staple...on the same equivalence level as the local ale.  Bangers and mash has at one time or another been voted as the 'comfort food' of Britain.

OTOH, they have this infatuation with those ubiquitous PEAS!! ...usually well over-cooked!...and not a favorite complement to the beloved bangers and mash, IMHO, of course.

---------------

Then there's THIS side of the pond...

Spam?  Scrapple? ...piffle!, my good fellow!  Simply piffle!

...back at ya!

----------------

Been 30+ years since my last bangers and mash meal in a pub older than our Constitution.   Oof!

@Mallard4468 posted:

How recently were you there?

Keep rubbing it in!

York is probably #1 on my list of places to visit.  It would be great even without the railway museum.  Is Purpleman (street performer) still active?

Did either of you make it to Swindon?  (I've never been - it's on the list.)  If so, pics and report?

September 2019. I went with my son post law school and before he started his job in Philly.

We made three train day trips from London:

York, to see the RR Museum and the cathedral.

Chartwell

Portsmouth to see the British Naval Museum.

Peter

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Great idea, this would be cool for any train museum that features steam trains!

Even with having this amount of detail on display people still can't get the parts of the locomotive right. I have a book that has a cutaway(which I read extensively when I bought it in the 90's), and of course forgot mostly everything. I did pop a visit up to Steamtown and the main problem there is that there is so much to see and hard to do in one day. I'll have to have a more extensive visit in the future, but I do agree having the cutaway of the components as well as the steam valve model to explain how it all works should help people of all ages understand and hopefully get the parts right.

How many times have we seen someone post "boiler front" which Lionel also said when talking about the smoke box door?

If spending some time in York and you're interested in picturesque ruins, I strongly suggest taking time to run over to Fountains Abbey. It was as large as Westminster and is spectacular. Also fun is walking the walls of York and checking out the various shops and attractions in the "bars". York and surrounding area is time well spent.

Since people have mentioned the SteamTown display, I thought I would share some pictures of their steam engine cutaway display. Note that the valve setup is not the same. ST's display is the earlier slide type with outside admission. The UK display is the later piston type with inside admission.  The piston type can handle higher pressures.

Enjoy!

Chris

LVHR

Those cut-aways (and others I have seen of items from fire extinguishers up through big Cummins Diesels) always fascinate me. It seems that the amount of deconstructive engineering is an art unto itself. Getting all the parts to be visible again and doing it precisely looks like it takes just as much planning as assembling the original product.

One big surprise for me at the museum (you're never too old, are you?) was learning that the awesome-looking Deltic diesels were so-named because they used a triangular arrangement of opposed pistons. So each set of six cylinders was actually three pairs of opposed cylinders arranged in a triangle.

@Mallard4468 posted:

Is Purpleman (street performer) still active?

If it's this guy, then, yes, he was there in August. He's doing a "slow walk". He says it's to raise funds for Ukraine.

@West Side Joe posted:

If it's this guy, then, yes, he was there in August. He's doing a "slow walk". He says it's to raise funds for Ukraine.

That be him!  Great to see that he's still active. 

One happy moment: a star attraction at the museum is Mallard, the world land speed record holder for a steam locomotive, 126mph in 1938. On my way by train from London to York, I just happened to glance out the window at the exact spot where the record was set as the lineside plaque commemorating the event flashed by.  A happy memory.

PS: the photo of the marker is not mine.

@West Side Joe posted:

One happy moment: a star attraction at the museum is Mallard, the world land speed record holder for a steam locomotive, 126mph in 1938. On my way by train from London to York, I just happened to glance out the window at the exact spot where the record was set as the lineside plaque commemorating the event flashed by.  A happy memory.

PS: the photo of the marker is not mine.

I once took the train from London to York, and of course I'm familiar with the record (note my user name!), but I didn't see the sign and never realized that the record-setting spot was along that route.  Thanks for sharing.