New "Lead Figures" cabinet

Lead Cowboys and Indians

The mysterious blanked-off cabinet next to the O-gauge "starter button" in Arch Three finally got unveiled last month.

A few of the lead Disney figures

It's a collection of English lead toys including four shelves of miscellaneous Cowboys and Indians, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men (including their pots and Little Weed), and another four shelves of classic cartoon and children's show characters (mostly by Disney) including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Peter Pan and Captain Hook, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Peter Rabbit, Andy Pandy, Little Ted and Looby Lou, Clara the Cow, and the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.

Trams and tracks

The tramway backdrop under construction

A lot of work goes into Museum display presentation. Putting an item on display isn't just a matter of putting something in a display cabinet, it's also about providing a surrounding visual context.

So, for the new tram display, we didn't just build a shelf for the piece and set up an overhead wire and street supports, we also sourced a contemporary tram scene for background, and built a strip of proper tramway track set into a section of stone roadway that was hand-assembled from individual flagsstones.

This obviously takes more time than simply putting an item on a shelf with a label, but we think that the results are worth it.

New tram display



"Bristol Tramways" tram

A new tram model has just gone on display, in Arch Four.

It's a Bristol Electric tram. The model is one of a pair, Bristol Museum have the other one.

Oliver Cromwell is coming

Stand under construction

We put in the last newletter that the Oliver Cromwell steam engine had arrived (all six feet of it). For the uninitiated, this a big green Britannia Class 7, 4-6-2, one-twelfth-scale steam engine and tender.

Well, it's still not quite on display yet. An item this large (and this heavy) needs a special display stand, and it's taken a while to finalise the design and sort out a few minor issues (like making some replacement parts for the track). The plinth is now pretty much built and painted, and just really needs the frame and glassing, so hopefully it shouldn't take too much longer.

 

Steamroller moved to Foyer

Our quarter-scale model steamroller (the "Sir Granville") was looking a little unhappy sitting on the floor under Arches 2-3, so we've now given it a clean and put it on a new trundleable plinth in Arch One. It's now  easier to see, and is nearer to its "traction engine" cousin.

The Brighton Belle at Modelworld 2011

The Modelworld 2011 Exhibition at the Brighton Centre's just come to an end.

The full-size Pullman "Brighton Belle" carriage display, on stand 34 of Modelworld 2011

The 5BEL Trust ("Bringing Back the Brighton Belle") were on stand 34, and they also had one of the actual Brighton Belle carriages parked outside on a trailer. The weather was a bit drab, but thanks to the Brighton Half Marathon, about five and a half thousand people trotted past it on Sunday morning.

The Brighton Belle's Car 88, parked outside the Brighton Centre, 20th Feb 2011

The exhibition also featured Daleks, a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, a lot of model trains, an awe-inspiring Lego aircraft carrier, and a Very Very Large scale steam locomotive (the Green Goddess) that was over twenty-seven and a half feet long including the tender, and weighed over eight tons.

Latest Homes Magazine

www.buildingopinions.com

Robert Nemeth's "Building Opinions" column in Latest Homes Magazine has an article on the museum this week (8-14 Feb issue, page 7).
The article is also online on the magazine's site, at thelatest.co.uk/homes/building-opinions-62 , and the column is archived at www.buildingopinions.com