The Idea
An exciting new development is currently under construction at the Nene Valley Railway, an International Traveling Post Office Museum. The museum is in the final planning stages and is to be built opposite the station building at Ferry Meadows. The aim of the museum is to tell the story of delivering mail by rail. The project is to be called 'Night Mail'.
The poem 'Night Mail' is well known and has provided countless people with inspiration, knowledge and enjoyment over the years.
Our new museum will act as a bold illustration of this poem by replicating the night time working atmosphere of a busy station, where the visitors will be able to 'step inside' the coaches that carried the night mail. This will provide an insight as to how mail was delivered not just in the 20th century but all the way back to the late 19th.
There will also be a chance to glimpse at the international transfer of mail as it makes its way across Europe, stored in the fourgons of another train of the night the famous sleeping car expresses of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits of which two cars are currently under restoration at the Nene Valley Railway.
An artists impression of the new museum
Proposed Location of the museum:
View Night Mail Museum Location in a larger map
The Nene Valley Railway boasts an established collection of historic traveling post offices and international coaches. It is both a pleasure and a duty as custodians of this excellent collection to both display & conserve the vehicles for not just our education and enjoyment but also that of future generations. The museum will provide a 6 coach exhibition hall, 6 coach running shed for service TPO's, 2 coach maintenance shed, classroom facilities, archive rooms for school groups and serious study, along with usual museum facilities such as a restaurant, cloakrooms & shop.
This museum will not only be world class but also unique, with its international collection of traveling post offices.
Plans
Below are the plans for the highly anticipated 'Night Mail Project', based opposite Ferry Meadows station on the Nene Valley Railway.
Click on a picture to expand.
Work So Far:
May 2011:
The site of the new museum has been cleared of any vegetation and objects that were previously in the way. A new double gate has been fabricated, increasing the size of vehicles and machinery that can now access the site and more trackwork has been laid where the railways entrance to the museum site will be.
December 2010:
Always foremost in our mind is to not allow the weather to undo the work that is done to 3916, we therefore intend to concentrate the period from New Year until Easter on getting work in progress on the Night Mail facilities at Ferry Meadows.
Stage one is to lay the track, then build the 6 coach running shed.
During the railway work week just after Easter the steam crane will lift the double slip point work into place. We will by this time have the site prepared and a start made on the track laying.
It will be good to see physical progress being made on the site.
September 2009:
The majority of the work on the project this year has been going on behind the scenes, so even though updates have been scarce and progress on the museum site itself minimal, we have still made great progress.
The planning permission process is long and requires many criteria to be filled before any kind of work can begin. So to be sure the plans are not rejected, a large amount of time and energy has been spent filling in the paperwork, making the phone calls and ticking all the boxes to allow this project to take off.
September 2008:
During september we were pleased to enlist the help of the army for site clarence work for the museum and assembling track point work for future installation.
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