IS it a boat? Is it a train?
The latest arrival to York's National Railway Museum (NRM) confused visitors yesterday when it travelled along the rail track powered by the wind, before going on display in the Museum's Great Hall over Easter. Spooner’s Boat could easily be mistaken for a water-based vessel, with its canvas sail and boat-like appearance, but it also has four steel tyres and runs along a railway line.
The extraordinary rail-mounted boat was completed in 2005, and is a replica of an original that was used as a private inspection carriage by Charles Easton Spooner, the manager and engineer of the Ffestiniog Railway during the mid-19th century. It has been loaned to the NRM by the Ffestiniog Railway to help celebrate the links between rail and sea as part of its latest free exhibition, Once Upon A Tide. The exhibition explores tales from more than 100 years of North Sea ferry crossings between Harwich and Hook, when ferries were part of the British Railways fleet.
The excitement of international travel has been brought to visitors at the NRM with a roll-on roll-off ferry taking centre stage, enabling visitors to walk onto the deck where they can experience the museum’s turntable as they never have before.
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