A major part of the development of trade and industry in the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution was the development of the railways. The transport of goods to sites of production and the distribution of that product was key to the growth of all industry.

The City of York, the county town on the edge of North Yorkshire, played a key role in the development of the countrywide network still in use today.

By the turn of the 20th century the City of York employed more than 5,500 people in its production of locomotives and rolling stock.

The National Railway Museum in York, a twenty acre site that originally served as the York North locomotive depot, displays a collection of over 100 locomotives and nearly 200 other items of rolling stock.

Virtually all of the collection ran on the railways of Great Britain or were built on the site.

Hundreds of thousands of other items and records of social, technical, artistic and historical interest are exhibited in three large halls of the former depot next to the East Coast Main Line, near York railway station.

It is the largest museum of its type in Britain and attracts more than 700,000  visitors a year, more than any other British museum outside London. The museum was established on its present site in 1975, when it took over the former British Railways collection located in Clapham, London and the York Railway Museum located elsewhere in the city.
Since then, the collection has continued to grow in both content and new innovation that it promises to remain a major exhibition for many years to come.
For more information on the museum check out their  web site that you will find here.