The Kidderminster Railway Museum houses a vast range of railway artefacts, most of which date back to the days of steam travel. From pen nibs to clocks, from signs to signalling equipment, from photographs to timetables and rolling stock – there is a vast amount to see when you visit us. The items in the museum come from all over the country, and are essentially related to the British Isles.
The collections are housed in a warehouse built by the Great Western Railway in 1878 for the storage of grain on the ground floor for the nearby flour mills, and wool on the upper floor for the local carpet industries. It had rail access on the one side and road access on the other. It was converted into a parcels warehouse in the 1960s and became disused and subsequently derelict in the early 1980s.
The museum was first opened in 1990 by a group of volunteers from the Severn Valley Railway. A substantial amount of work has been done to ensure the building is safe, functional and looking something like it was when first built. The displays have changed and developed over the nine years that we have been open. There is always something new to see each time you visit. Currently the ground floor displays are being refurbished. The Midland Railway booking office from Alvechurch and a telephone exchange with many sorts of working phones have recently been completed. We are now working on a nameplate/numberplate/worksplate display, and an exhibition of trackwork and associated items such as boundary posts and gradient posts. Some of the collection is used for ?hands-on? displays, such as the telephone display and some of the signalling equipment. We have one of the largest collections of signalling equipment in the country.