STEAM - the Great Western Railway museum

I mentioned visiting STEAM in Swindon in my bank holiday sports round up. Here are a few more bits and pieces that caught my eye there.

STEAM is housed in one of the Great Western Railway's former foundry buildings. The railway engineering works was pivotal to the growth of Swindon as a large town, although that industry has disappeared now. Most of the former locomotive works is now the outlet shopping village next door.

The museum starts with several exhibits explaining how the foundry worked and its importance in the area. I went through those parts fairly quickly to get to the more exciting stuff - the steam engines.

There were several locos in the museum, including no.6000 King George V. Fun fact: my Dad had a model of this on his model railway when we were kids and I think my brother still has it.

Dad also had a pannier tank engine, and so did the museum. Different scales of course.

One of the highlights was going underneath a loco and being able to look up and see the interior workings.

I thought this Wickham inspection trolley was a fun, unusual item.

The Welsh connection to the GWR is huge because the railway absorbed almost all the Welsh railway companies. Four of the companies are on these plaques.

And there were several other Welsh themed exhibits.

The GWR did a lot to publicise Wales and the West Country as a tourist destination. 

The GWR also owned several road vehicles. The museum had restored this old fire engine.

And I liked this Scammell tractor unit.

STEAM is also the venue for several Lego events during the course of the year and so, naturally, there was a Lego train too.

All in all a decent way to spend a morning in Swindon.