Inspiration: The Railway 200 Exhibition

Ongoing throughout 2026 at various locations

On the 27th September 2025, 200 years ago, the first railway opened and this has had such a huge impact, not only in the UK, but across the world.  This exhibition celebrates two hundred years of the railways in the UK an how better to do it, than putting the exhibition on a train and having it tour the UK?  The exhibition is free but you need to book and even so, it is likely to be busy on the train whenever you go.  

It was a fun exhibition and very interactive and it was especially great for children.  We visited the Inspiration train at Newquay station, and being a holiday town and the Easter holidays, it was very busy and there were a lot of children visiting.  It was great to see them all really enjoying the exhibition.  Personally, I would prefer a quieter time to visit and I suspect during school term time may be quieter.  

With their being so many children and it being single file in many places it meant that we were at odds with the flow around us much of the time.  I like to read the information boards in full, where as, the children were very much less interested in doing that.  When it came to the more fun interactive elements of the exhibition, as child-less adults, we just didn't really get a look in and it was also hard to read the information about those exhibits.

This is where I really recommend the Bloomberg Connects app.  This app is not just for this exhibition but includes many exhibitions and museums around the world.  The detail of the information included for exhibitions varies a lot, depending on what different institutions have submitted.  The information submitted by 200 is excellent and if you can not visit the exhibition but are interested in learning more, you should absolutely have a look...  and a listen because it includes audio clips introducing each section by Lead Curator Rob Scargill.  

So I didn't actually miss much...  except the opportunity to be more of a big kid myself.

My only other complaint was that some exhibits were out of order.  It must be hard to keep everything working when an exhibit is travelling all over the country and seeing such high use.  It did not impact our enjoyment, as everything we did get to see was excellent and there was plenty of things to see.

The first step was to pick up a ticket and collect the first of four ticket punches.  (Unfortunately, the last two punching machines were out of order)

The first carriage was about the past and I learnt a lot. They picked some fascinating stories to highlight in the exhibition.   Each theme had five stories attached to it.  

We often forget that invention is a process, there are often many stages in developing an idea until it is recognisable and the railways are no exception.  1825 may have been when the first modern railway opened, but the development of the concept had been occurring for many many years before this.  The first exhibition had a series on levers and each one stopped you at a different time, with a short visual clip to go with it.  I had no idea the Greeks had a rudimentary railway as early as 600 BCE, where they used a paved track to transport warships overland...  So the first train was actually a ship...  

I knew early railways were related to mining.  Cornwall was at the forefront of these developments, with a number of tramways, where horses pulled carriages along tracks.  The tramways connected mines with processing plants and harbours.  Many of these tramways are now multi-use trails.  It was really nice to see Richard Trevithick get a mention for his innovation with steam engines on wheels.  His first locomotive pulled a loaded train nearly ten miles in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales at the Penydarrren Ironworks.

The next section theme was culture and it took a look at how trains have been included in our culture, with the first illustration of a rail vehicle from 1556, the first drawing of a train by a child from 1825 and the first railway photograph from 1845.  Then  we looked at some examples of how railways have worked their way into culture as being quite British in a way, with stories like Tomas the Tank Engine, Paddington Bear, Agatha Christie, James Bond and Mr Bean reinforcing this identity.  Terms used first in the railways have become part of accepted everyday language and it's clear the railways have hugely shaped our society (just the ticket, fast track, one-track mind, letting of steam.....)

Time was another interesting section which included the first railway timetable.  I had no idea the first commercial use of electricity was due to the railways.  There was a Cooke and wheatstone telegraph which lit up to demonstrate how it enabled people to communicate over long distances for the first time.  It enabled actual letters to be transmitted so there was no code to be deciphered.  

Another thing I did not realise until recently was that it was the railways that caused time to become standardised.  Until the electric telegraph, people had no way of telling if the time was the same in different places as it was based on the local sunrise and sunset.  Trains need  a strict timetable in order to operate safely.  In 1840, the Great Western Railway was the first to tell all of it's stations to synchronise their times to London.

Work included the story of the first known railway employee in 1645.  The burial register of Whickham in North east England lists a widow Howborne  as gatekeeper.  She operated a waggon gate by her cottage.  women have always had a place in the railways, even if it has not always been easy.  Karen Harrison applied to be a train driver in 1979, using her initial rather than her full name.  Not surprisingly, she faced harassment bt her determination saw her reach the highest position in the train drivers union she belonged to.

Railways have had a huge impact on our lifestyles.  They have opened up the world to commuting, package holidays and mail-order businesses.  They also allowed fish and chip shops to open away from the sea as fish could be transported inland before it spoiled.  

Safety has always been a huge issue on the railways.  Many people died laying the tracks as well as in train accidents.  The Harrow and Wealdstone crash in 1952 claimed 112 lives but it would have been far higher without Abbie Sweetwine, an American nurse who is credited with being the first Paramedic.  Rather than send everyone straight to hospital, she began treating them there and then.  She used her lipstick to mark those people she had already given morphine too.  It is believed she saved many lives that day and became known as the 'Angel of Platform 6'.

Trains cannot stop easily or quickly making it very hard to avoid accidents.  Innovation in safety has been key to the railways and a huge part of this is communication.  Everyone needs to know when and where a train will be so that there will be no crashes.  If trains ran late, the risk of a crash increased as it could be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This was why time keeping and timetabling were so important.  Signaling was a later development in 1952 that allowed lights to show if a train was already in a block of track.  It made it clear whether a train could continue or had to stop.  Signaling continues to evolve and digital signaling was first used in 2011.  You can still see signals all along the railway, certainly at the end of every platform.

Innovation is everywhere in the railways though.  Although bridges had been around for a long time, they had to develop in order to carry trains that were so much heavier and larger than a horse and cart.  Because trains can not turn easily or go up and down steep inclines, they had to cross obstacles.  This might be a bridge over a gorge or a tunnel through a hill.  The Channel Tunnel was a huge achievement and I enjoyed seeing the clip of the English engineer and French Engineer meeting as they broke through.  I remember seeing this at the time on the news.  The Channel Tunnel allowed the first train to come al the way from China to the UK in 2017.

The second carriage for the present contained three interactive challenges.  The first was to build a bridge (mine was the best), using blocks and a preformed valley.  There was a track in place with a train so you could test your design.  This was great as lots of people could make bridges at the same time.

The next challenge was about designing a wheel that would stay on a track.  There was a zig zagging downward track and you could add elements to a rod (like weights on a barbell) and test out the profile you designed.  All the children were having a lot of fun doing this.

The third challenge was unfortunately out of order.  It looked at how landscape affects the design of a railway.  You could shape the land by moving sand and a computer would track the changes and calculate the best route, placing bridges and tunnels as needed.

The third carriage looked at the future and was very much about promoting a range of railway careers.  There was information on a diverse range of jobs, things that would be less obvious than train drivers, train managers and station staff.  There were little games to play for children to test their aptitude.  They looked like a lot of fun.  We didn't stand a chance of doing much in this carriage and it was so popular I struggled to read some of the information boards.  I particularly enjoyed the ecologist board as it talked about the railways as a landowner and protector of nature.  I had no idea the Bristol Whitebeam tree was only found in the Avon gorge, including along the railway there.

The very last section was devoted to cardboard creativity.  Some of the sculptures created has been placed outside on the platform.  We looked in the door and it was such a hive of activity, I don't know quite how we would have found space to go in.

It's very clear the exhibition is especially good for children.  They were all having so much fun.  It was still really interesting and fun for adults too.  It has been so well put together. and I enjoyed it very much.

It was really interesting to see the train from the outside too, it had been very strikingly decorated.  For people interested in trains, I imagine the engine was very interesting too as it was different from those I normally see on the railway locally.

So I would absolutely recommend this exhibition.  We were there for about 45 minutes, but imagine some of the children were playing for a lot longer!  Even though it runs until the end of tomorrow (Saturday 11/4/26) at Newquay, you won't be able to go now unless you already have tickets as it is fully booked.  It is still visiting station all over the country though, until it finishes in the Summer.  It is not however scheduled to return to Cornwall.