A new £11 million Railway Heritage Centre is opening in Britain - but it will not compete with York's National Railway Museum, it was claimed today.

Steam, the Museum of the Great Western Railway, is to open next spring on the site of a former locomotive factory at Swindon.

Organisers promise it will "transcend conventional notions of a museum...It will be light years away from the traditional museum set pieces in glass cases."

They say the 70,000 square foot complex, which has won £8 million in lottery funding as well as backing from BAA McArthur Glen, will offer an interactive, hands-on, attraction guaranteed to draw huge audiences from both the domestic and international tourist markets.

Just like the NRM, the museum will feature some of the great locomotives, such as the King George V and Caerphilly Castle. There will be a re-creation of eight factory workshops where the engines and rolling stock were built, features on how the railways opened up tourism to seaside resorts, displays of platform paraphernalia and working steam engines on-track.

But the council insists that the museum will not compete directly with the NRM, which itself is currently undergoing a multi-million pound lottery-funded expansion.

"The NRM is established in its own right. We are doing something different, about a railway, the GWR, in its own social context.

"York is still the national museum. There's room for two."

He said that the NRM had cooperated in the venture by lending exhibits rather than acting as a rival.

Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of York Tourist Bureau, said the NRM, as the world's largest railway museum, had helped establish York as a top visitor destination and she did not view Steam as a threat at this stage.

Andrew Scott, head of the NRM, said today he viewed the new museum as "complementary."

He said he was pleased that new exhibit space was being created so that more of the nation's collection could go on public display, saying there were few enough such museums across the country. "At the end of the day, we are the National Railway Museum and they have a regional remit."

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