Railway museum in York

The National Railway Museum in York is not just another "pretty" tourist attraction. It's a place where you can see for yourself the scale of the engineering and the amount of raw material that had to be moved to build the industrial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Photos and videos completely fail to convey how huge these machines are. Standing next to a steam locomotive weighing 160–170 tons you feel that it's not a model – it's the equivalent of dozens of wagons of coal, steel and precision mechanics in a single object. You suddenly understand why steam locomotives were seen as a symbol of the era.

Three exhibits that stick with you the most:

1. LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard
The steam speed record holder – 126 mph (203 km/h) in 1938 on the run down Stoke Bank. The record still stands today.
Up close you can see how well thought-out the design is – the aerodynamic casing, the Kylchap double chimney, the large firebox. It's not just a "pretty" steam locomotive in a deep red. It's a machine designed to smash records and to show that the British in the 1930s were still fighting for the top spot in speed.

2. Shinkansen Series 0
The first production Japanese high-speed train (1964).
The contrast couldn't be greater — from heavy, forged steel and steam to a minimalist, aluminium form and electric propulsion. Inside you can feel how much thinking about rail transport changed over the course of 25–30 years. This is not an exhibit "for beauty" — it's a symbol of the technological leap that defined the second half of the 20th century.

For a photographer it's a challenging but very rewarding place.

The enormous halls give you plenty of space, but at the same time the harsh overhead light, deep shadows and gigantic blocks of machinery make it easy to take a "pretty photo" and very hard to convey the true scale and mass. The best shots come from a low perspective or with a very wide angle (14–24 mm), when a person and a locomotive fit in the frame together.

If anyone really wants to understand what underpinned Great Britain's industrial power — from the Victorian era to the postwar period — the National Railway Museum is a must on the map of York (and northern England in general).

Oława Automobile Museum

Ostatnio miałem okazję odwiedzić jedno z najciekawszych miejsc w Oławie – Muzeum motoryzacji. To miejsce, które z pewnością zainteresuje nie tylko miłośników motoryzacji, ale także wszystkich, którzy cenią sobie historię i rozwój technologii transportowej.

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Glasgow Transport Museum

Muzeum Transportu w Glasgow (Riverside Museum) to muzeum transportu i technologii w Glasgow w Szkocji. Muzeum znajduje się w pobliżu rzek Kelvin i Clyde, a jego otwarcie nastąpiło w 2011 roku.

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