Category:2016 - new exhibits and infrastructure

Draft logo for the museum's 1991-2016 Anniversary [image info]

Bridge-building in the Museum's woodworking workshop [image info]

The museum's 25th anniversary (1991-2016) is important to us, and while we have spent much of 2015 focusing on improving the museum's basic infrastructure, 2016 is going to be marked by an important range of new and exciting exhibits.

Major new exhibits for 2016

January 2016

Meccano display refit

We're launching 2016 with an overhaul of our main Meccano display cabinet. Notable additions will include a red and green Meccano beam engine model, Elektron, Elektrikit, Dinky Builder and Motor Car Constructor sets, a pair of the original upright Meccano steam engines, and displays of most of the really obscure Meccano mechanism parts.

Bassett-Lowke exhibition-grade 1:16 traction engine

A quite beautiful 1:16-scale (3/4" to the foot) exhibition-grade model created from the Bassett-Lowke castings. This model has impeccable paintwork and lining, and is dripping with refinements and "extras" not present on the usual versions of the engine. The B-L traction engine set of parts was one of the company's longest-running product lines, on sale from before the war to the 1950s, and was one of the company's most important products during its later post-war years.

Luthansa Immelman aircraft D - AHIT

A very, very large model by (Denis Hefford). We've had this in storage for a while, but have been unable to install it up until now because of the lack of a scaffold tower. We have now acquired a tower (Nov 2015), and will be installing the plane in the museum lobby, where it will be posed under attack by the two large overhead radio-controlled Spitfires.

Scheduled for February onwards:

Bond's 1937 gauge 0 Brighton Belle prototype

The unfinished exhibition-grade prototype of a product line that never actually happened, due to the outbreak of World War Two. This is the only example we know of of a pre-war high-grade contemporary metal reproduction of the 1933 Brighton Belle train. Restoration is due to be completed in early 2016.

Victorian Dollhouse Furniture display

The biggest improvement currently scheduled for 2016 is a multi-level display of dollhouse furniture from the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. This is an area where we have an excellent collection in storage, and where it's possible to pack a relatively large number of items into a small space. It's also an area that the museum hasn't really being doing justice to, and the new display should be a significant expansion to the museum's existing range.

Märklin Junkers Ju52 constructional aircraft

A gorgeous modern 1980 "reissue" of an excellent period Märklin toy, manufactured using the original machine tools. The problem with having this plane in the museum awaiting exhibition is that we keep having to stop people from trying to play with it.

Infrastructure

Full-scale rollout of NFC tags

After trialling these in 2015, we'll be applying them to every cabinet in the museum.