The sad news has been announced that John Snell, one of the early pioneers of the railway heritage movement has passed away. John was involved with the Talyllyn Railway from its earliest days, and was the fireman on the first train to run on the Talyllyn under preservation. He subsequently worked for London Transport, British Railways and for 28 years as the General Manager of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.
See the TR web site: http://www.talyllyn.co.uk/news/john-snell-1932-2013
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Following a Museums Association report on the 8th January that appeared to imply that as a result of further government cuts, there would be reductions in funding for museums, the Arts Council has issued further guidance to clarify the position and reassure the sector that funding will be maintained.
More details are available at the AIM web site: http://www.aim-museums.co.uk/article/museum_development_funding/
If you are tired of dark mornings and evenings, floods and rain, don’t forget that the summer is on the way! To cheer everyone up, here is a picture I took after a trip down the St Ives branch in Cornwall last July on a day when it was 27c!
A date for your diary!
The next ABTEM meeting will be held on Wednesday 30th April at the STEAM Museum in Swindon.
The working title for the seminar is ‘Volunteers in a changing environment’ – more details to follow here and on our Facebook page. If you would like further information, please use the attached to contact ABTEM about the event.
We are pleased to announce that ABTEM has been awarded £13,600 by Arts Council England as part of its Renaissance-funded Subject specialist network programme.
The funding will be used to run our seminar programme for the 2013-2015 period, offering travel bursaries for delegates, the setting up of an annual Heritage Forum for groups in the sector, and to enable the association to carry out scoping work on the updating of the old Museums & Galleries Commission guidelines for the operation and preservation of larger and working object collections.
More information about the grant scheme is available at: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/funding-subject-specialist-networks-announced/
This is the first post on the new ABTEM (Association of British Transport & Engineering Museums) blog/web site.
We hope that it will be a useful forum for you to learn more about what we do, and also catch up with other happenings and news stories in the transport and engineering museum sector.
Please feel free to contribute your own thoughts and stories!
Tim Bryan
ABTEM Chairman
