Trains planes... and Daleks
- Publication: Sunday Express
- Date: 1997-08-31
- Author: Deborah Stone
- Page: 60
- Language: English
WHO says you actually have to travel anywhere from a railway station to have a bit of excitement? The world's oldest passenger station could be the setting for an awfully big adventure.
Manchester's Liverpool Road terminus-at the end of a line built by George (Rocket) Stephenson-was opened in 1830, closed in 1975 and transformed into a museum in 1983.
Now, jauntily titled the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, it's a world away from the old-fashioned institutions which offered displays of mucky engines that were about as exciting as a modern timetable.
The science bit is a died-and-gone-to-heaven dream for children-big and small-who always wanted to be train drivers, pilots, racing drivers or even astronauts. Anybody with a sense of history and beauty will be mesmerised by the exhibits and buildings on this seven-acre site in the heart of the trendy Castlefield area.
As well as the world's oldest passenger station, there's also the first railway building, a cathedral-like warehouse with huge timbers holding the roof aloft, and massive arches on which the track was laid.
It's so stylishly-restored that it could easily be home to hip warehouse-dwellers. It was a perfect setting for Video Positive, the electronic art festival earlier this year. At the moment, until September 7, there's a contemporary art installation, Tap, Ruffle And Shave.
Another stunning building, a Victorian cast iron and glass market hall, built to service the residential area that sprang up around the station, now holds the museum's air and space gallery.
Exhibits range from biplanes to a Hawker Hunter jet.
Most were either designed or built in Manchester and are guaranteed to lure visitors inside as they glimpse them through the glass.
Upstairs in the space gallery there's a Russian model of the Mir space station minus the dents and broken bits-the Gemini paraglider on loan from Nasa and even a Dalek.
The old Power Hall houses more products of Manchester's engineering heydays. The gleaming steam trains sent by giant Beyer Garratt to South Africa in 1930 and a loco made for North West Indian Railways in 1911.
And as this was the city where Henry Ford set up his first factory outside the US and where Rolls-Royce started in 1904, so the old cars on display are suitably impressive.
Even the railway track had its 15 minutes of fame. It's the one anyone who's ever sat through a history lesson about the Industrial Revolution will know: Built to link Manchester's factories with Liverpool's docks, thousands lined the route for the opening by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, in an open carriage pulled by the Rocket. Celebrations were only marred when Liverpool MP William Huskisson was run down and killed as he unwisely stepped on the line for a chat with the PM.
NOWADAYS the station's booking hall and waiting rooms take you back to the earliest days of rail travel. And the Victorian sewers - a hit with youngsters - provide yet another journey through the city's history.
The National Gas Gallery and the National Electricity Gallery are interesting in a bizarre kind of way.
A Thirties gas showroom, an all-electric kitchen, and a Fifties electric living room have been resurrected in the ultimate household appliance nostalgia trip. Not necessarily very scientific, but great fun.
And fun is the keyword at the hands-on Xperiment! Aimed at children, its giant executive toys are a revelation to anybody who never really got the hang of physics... so just about everybody.
INFORMATION
COLLECTION RANGE: From steam trains and vintage cars to Dr Who's Cyberman pal and an egg from the film Alien. VISITORS: 334,000 last year. FAVOURITE ITEM: The Victorian sewers are remarkably popular.
MOST GRUESOME: The egg from Alien. BEST BUY: Gift shop's top seller is an Alien head key ring, £1.25.
ADMISSION: Adults £5, concessions £3 and under-fives free. Car park £1.50. ADDRESS: Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester. Nearest railway station is Deansgate. Nearest Metrolink station is G-Mex. No 33 bus from Picadilly stops outside. Tel: 0161-832 2244.
Caption: SPACE AGE: The museum includes exhibits from Nasa, a mock up of Mir-and Dr Who's old foe, a Dalek
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- APA 6th ed.: Stone, Deborah (1997-08-31). Trains planes... and Daleks. Sunday Express p. 60.
- MLA 7th ed.: Stone, Deborah. "Trains planes... and Daleks." Sunday Express [add city] 1997-08-31, 60. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Stone, Deborah. "Trains planes... and Daleks." Sunday Express, edition, sec., 1997-08-31
- Turabian: Stone, Deborah. "Trains planes... and Daleks." Sunday Express, 1997-08-31, section, 60 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Trains planes... and Daleks | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Trains_planes..._and_Daleks | work=Sunday Express | pages=60 | date=1997-08-31 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=14 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Trains planes... and Daleks | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Trains_planes..._and_Daleks | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=14 March 2025}}</ref>
