Friday 29 July 2011

Curatorial Corner - 28th July 2011

New home for Photographic Collection


Upgraded Storage System
(System Stores Solutions Ltd)
The photographic collection at STEAM is one of our fastest growing collections.  At present we have over 40,000 prints, together with 1000s of slides, negatives and glass plates.  The images range from industrial scenes to locomotives and from official staff portraits to architecture.  It is a fascinating cross section illustrating the history of the Great Western Railway.

The photographic collection is housed in our archive and thanks to a generous grant from The Friends of Swindon Railway Museum the original storage system has been upgraded to allow the storage of another 20,000-30,000 photographs.

The Museum gets donated photographs almost every month and it is thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers that they get sorted, catalogued and filed.  It has taken 10 years to catalogue 40,000 photographs, and there are many years of work still ahead!

Our photographic collection can be viewed by appointment at the Museum, or you can access the collection online at http://www.steampicturelibrary.com/  Some of our amazing images can be seen below.



Evening Star, 1960


Women making nets in Swindon Works, c1930s


Sir Daniel Gooch


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