RAILWAY workers who kept the nation’s Second World War efforts on track are being celebrated with an exhibition.
Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon and Head of Steam, Darlington Railway Museum launched the mobile display this week.
Railways at War- Our Unsung Heroes is a collection of photographs and personal reflections exploring the stories of World War Two railway workers. It follows an intergenerational project which brought schools and war veterans from across County Durham together.
Locomotion’s education officer Anthony Attle said: "The transport network, of which the railway was a huge part as there weren’t as many cars and roads as there are now, was hugely important during the war.
"We wanted to mark the wartime efforts of all those railway workers, in all jobs, that together kept the country moving.
"It was important for transporting evacuees early on, then moving goods, getting arms and soldiers around and there were hospital lines for the injured.
"As was often the case with people from that era, they all made a valuable contribution to the war whether on the front-line or back home yet just got on with it so we wanted to commemorate that."
Among the workers involved in the project was Alan Holmes, of Ferryhill, who worked out of the North Road Depot in Darlington initially as a cleaner then as a fireman.
At the launch, Mr Attle presented him with a bound copy of his own stories which will be reproduced for educational projects. A website featuring work from the project, which was part of Their Past Your Future 2 funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Museums Libraries and Archives, is also being created.
The exhibition will be on display at Locomotion until February 26, it will then go on display at Darlington Railway Museum.
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