National Railway Museum has secured £18.5m of government funding towards the expansion of its visitor attraction in York.
Part of the National Railway Museum’s £55m Vision 2025 masterplan, the 4,500 sqm Central Hall will connect the existing Great Hall and Station Hall buildings and provide additional capacity to welcome up to 1.2m visitors annually.
The museum is already one of the most visited museums in the North of England, welcoming 782,000 visitors in 2018-19, and the development will significantly expand available gallery space and improve accessibility.
As well as reception spaces, the Central Hall will include a spectacular 1,000 sqm new gallery which will house future acquisitions and innovative technology with a focus on the modern rail industry.
The building will be complete and open to the public in 2025 - 50 years after the museum first opened and 200 years since the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
The Vision 2025 masterplan comprises eight projects which will transform the National Railway Museum into a world-class visitor attraction. These include the Central Hall, extensive landscaping of South Yard and redisplaying the museum’s famous Great Hall.
Judith McNicol, Director of the National Railway Museum, said, “It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Central Hall to our future. It will unify our site, sensitively connecting historic railway buildings and providing a stunning new welcome to our visitors.
'It will be a place where we can showcase the cutting-edge innovations of today alongside the engineering triumphs of the past; a place where we can inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists, inventors and problem-solvers.”
The National Railway Museum’s Vision 2025 development is poised to become the cultural anchor of the wider York Central development, which is one of the largest city centre brownfield regeneration projects in the UK.
The museum currently offers three dining options, The Great Hall Cafe (pictured), which serves up locally sourced hot and cold deli food, bakery treats, and a variety of coffees, speciality teas and hot chocolate; Station Hall Cafe, which includes a Victorian-inspired dining car, and a 1920s lounge; and a beautifully restored rail carriage, the Countess of York, which serves up luxury afternoon tea.
