Welcome to STEAM...

STEAM's story of the Great Western Railway is truly remarkable - especially when you stop to consider the amount of blood, sweat and tears that went into making the GWR the most advanced rail network of its kind in the world.

Yes, principally it's a museum about trains but unlike its northern big brother - the National Railway Museum at York - STEAM is geared around the people who made the GWR 'God's Wonderful Railway'.

From the moment you walk in it's their voices that start your journey through 150 years of the GWR.

From the neat, trim and bespectacled secretary beating out 80 words-per-minute on her Royal manual typewriter, to the factory worker being chastised by his boss for being late, you soon realise that it was the ordinary people who made the GWR such a powerful company.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel - creator of 'God's Wonderful Railway'

The steam engines, as they screamed through Box Tunnel, might have impressed the odd train-spotting schoolboy and the complex network of tracks, which stretched from London down to Cornwall and into Wales, might be regarded as a tremendous achievement but without its staff this oldest of railway companies would have amounted to nothing more than a damp firebox on a wet Monday morning.

As Jeff Salter from the Museum explains: "STEAM is not just about locomotives. STEAM is as much about the people as about locomotives and railways.

"It tells the remarkable story of the men and women who built, operated and travelled on 'God's Wonderful Railway' and the Swindon Works and the impact of the GWR on the town are an important part of that story."

In its heyday, Swindon's railway works employed 12,000 people and produced three locomotives a week.

It was a truly self-sufficient organisation producing everything it needed from tracks to toilet rolls, platform paraphernalia to pen nibs!

The navvies: building the GWR with blood, sweat and tears

With its detailed reconstructions, the Museum goes onto to reflect how the wooden carriages were painstakingly handbuilt and how those working in the boiler shops were left deaf by the time they were thirty.

As visitors continue their tour, the story of the GWR Swindon Works concludes with the magnificent 'Caerphilly Castle' locomotive - once the world's fastest steam loco.

Here you have the chance to see underneath this fantastic piece of heavy engineering and take a closer look as you climb onto the footplate.

A display showing the building of the Great Western Railway network by teams of Irish navvies, is another stark reminder that this is a story based on the lives of real people - including the rough and tough itinerant workers who dug out the tunnels and laid the track and who sometimes even gave their lives to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's dream.

One lump or two?

With plenty of interactive displays for visitors to try, video presentations featuring railway workers' memories, a full size GWR station, examples of other locomotives and carriages built in Swindon, STEAM concludes with a nostalgic recreation of a West Country seaside destination complete with Punch and Judy, brass bands and 'What the Butler Saw' machines.

Jeff says, "most of our visitors are from the UK but as the GWR set the standards for railways and rail travel around the world, the STEAM story also appeals to a global audience."

But he adds: "there's also tremendous local interest in STEAM and the story of the Swindon Works. Swindon was a railway town and the community was dependant on the GWR for many years. STEAM represents the heritage of Swindon and enables the people who now live in the area to better understand how Swindon evolved," he adds.

Locomotive 'Caerphilly Castle' - made in Swindon

And there's one item in the Museum that is Jeff's personal favourite: "For me, Caerphilly Castle always takes my breath away and to think that every part was made in Swindon!

"I'm also fascinated by the recreated railway station - especially with the very lifelike food on the tea trolley!"

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Co (the Netherlands)
Absolutely Great