As a frequent visitor to Swindon over the last twenty years or so, I have visited the former Railway Museum on at least three occasions. I found it most interesting and informative, despite its relatively small size.

I recently visited the new, much vaunted, though I understand, financially troubled, railway exhibition for the first time.

On entering the vast and imposing entrance hall I was most impressed, and expected great things to come of the exhibition.

What a let down. On taking the tour through, I found that apart from the King George V display, which was superb, the loco driving platform and the signal box, the rest of the exhibits were mundane, and somewhat shabby.

The whole format of the exhibition is wrong, and will be doomed to closure for lack of interest unless the main emphasis is on the finished products, ie mainly locomotives but with additional important subsidiary departments represented (forge, fitting and fabrication shops etc), to give a more balanced picture of the whole engineering works at Swindon, and to do proper justice to the dedicated men and to the superb engineering products which resulted.

My suggestions for improvements are as follows:

1. Locate car park right outside the entrance.

2. Considerably reduce the shop and reception areas.

3. Locate a historic loco in the entrance hall, on view through the windows.

4. Move the cafeteria to the ground floor in part of the space created by reducing the shop area.

5. Move the existing displays, plus other displays of ancillary departments to the first floor.

6. Bring in more locomotives of any type and era, such as I recall were in the original museum, which is what everyone, man or boy, wants to see.

7. Ensure the model train layout works it didn't when I was at the exhibition!

A T Owen

Wolverhampton

West Midlands