Category:Shildon Locomotion Museum

English: Shildon Locomotion Museum, or Locomotion, The National Railway Museum at Shildon, is a railway museum in Shildon, County Durham, England. It is a satellite site of the National Railway Museum based in York (see Category:National Railway Museum, York), and is used to house their 60 strong reserve collection under cover but open to the public. It opened to the public on Saturday 25 September 2004, ahead of an official opening by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair (who was also the local local MP). Its opening marked the first time the entire NRM collection was out of storage and open to the public. Connected to the main line, rolling stock can also be transferred between it and the main site in York.

The name refers to the fact that in September 1825, Locomotion No 1 headed the world's first steam-hauled passenger train from Shildon to Darlington, on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Former Shildon resident Timothy Hackworth, the first locomotive superintendent of the S&DR, was involved in the building of Locomotion No 1, and also built Sans Pareil ('without parallel'), another significant early steam locomotive. The original Sans Pareil now stands in the Welcome building of the museum, while a working replica built in the 1970s is housed in the Collection hall.

The bulk of the museum's exhibits are housed in the Collection hall, purposely built for the new museum. The establishment of the museum also united seven nearby existing railway related sites, including the Hackworth Museum centred on Soho Cottage, the former home of Timothy Hackworth, as well as the Soho Works he established.