10th April It's virtually real


Today TOM and I am off on our jollies to north Yorshire to have a few days rest after the frantic nature of Holy Week and Easter. Our destination is Scarborough and a lovely AirBnB but before all that we headed under leaden skies to the National Railway Museum in York. This is I have to admit something that is on TOM's bucket list rather than on any list of things I'd like to do before I turn 60. Or any age.

And to be honest I think we both found it a tad of a disappoinment. TOM because it wasn't like previous visits he had made and me well because it was just a hanger full of static trains that you couldn't really do much with apart from look at them or inside them. And with several that you were invited to look 'inside' it seemed a shame that the lights hadn't been switched on!!

I was quite surprised at how uninteractive the whole thing was especially given the age of technology we all appear to love it. No touch screens, no press this or pull that. Even the Flying Scotsman was a bit...'oh right seen that'... And a large section containing all of the Royal trains was closed for renovation. Although perhaps that was a blessing to be honest.

The place was packed with hordes of families / children (did I say that entry was free) and it didn't help that we arrived an hour early which meant having to hang around for two things we had booked and for which we couldn't change the time of our bookings.

But we definitely saved the best till last with a really, really good virtual reality experience  which took us on a journey on and inside the workings of the Flying Scotsman. I don't think either of us had done VR before and although it only lasted 10 mins it was very cleverly done and literally made the hairs on the back of your neck feel as if they were singed by the 'virtual heat' of the coal generated fire and jets of steam. Now that did get the trip back on tracks.

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