£6m grant for Manchester museum
Money will be used to return working steam to museum and renovate historic buildings.
Working steam will return to Manchester’s Science & Industry Museum in three years’ time, thanks to a £6 million grant from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport.
The money will fund renovations to the Power Hall – home to 1992-built replica Stephenson 2-2-0 Planet, the 1929-built replica Novelty, South African Railways ‘GL’ Beyer-Garratt 4-8-2+2-8-4 No. 2352, Pakistan Railways Vulcan Foundry-built ‘SP/S’ 4-4-0 No. 3157, and sectioned Isle of Man Railway Beyer Peacock 2-4-0T No. 3 Pender – which was closed in April this year owing to the major repairs needed to its roof. The grant will also be used to renovate the New Warehouse and the Grade I-listed 1830 Warehouse.
SIM director Sally MacDonald said: “The Power Hall is the oldest and one of the best loved of our
galleries, but for some years now we haven’t been able to show it at its best. In April this year, we had to close it so that our team could carry out urgent repairs. “Now, thanks to a generous grant of £6 million from the DCMS, we’ll be able to do much more. We’ll be completely replacing the roof, getting the steam engines up and running again and, most excitingly, reinterpreting the gallery to show how steam power changed Manchester and the world.”
The project is expected to take around two years, with the Power Hall scheduled to remain closed until summer 2021, with working steam returning the following year.
Although the stationary engines will return to working order, the SIM could not confirm whether steam locomotive operations will restart. Steam locomotives have not run at the former Liverpool & Manchester Railway station since August 2017 “following a survey of our historic site that identified key issues to be addressed,” said a
SIM spokesperson.