%0 Journal Article
%T Challenging museum narratives: the case of a Rhodesia Railways carriage
%A Will Sims
%A William Law
%D 2024
%V 
%N Autumn 2024
%K Africa
%K colonial history
%K David Shepherd
%K Museum
%K railway history
%K Rhodesia
%K Zambia
%K Zimbabwe
%X Science Museum Group (SMG) object 2005-7446 was built by a British rolling stock manufacturer in 1927. It was exported as a first-class passenger coach to British-administered Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) and ran on the lines operated by the former Rhodesia Railways. But, in 1974, the carriage was on its way back to Britain, overseen by the artist, conservationist and railway enthusiast, David Shepherd. After being displayed at a series of locations across Britain, the carriage was acquired by the National Railway Museum, part of SMG, in the early 2000s. It was kept in storage until 2024. 
With the carriage now on display at SMG’s National Collections Centre in Wroughton, this article asks what stories it has the potential to tell. It argues that interpretation of the carriage since its repatriation has focused on the story of its return, while gaps in the knowledge of its operational life – including the experiences of passengers and the impacts of the railway’s labour hierarchy – have been overlooked. By tracing the carriage’s archival trail in Britain and consulting SMG’s technical files, this paper highlights the importance of foregrounding such untold narratives. It concludes to suggest ways forward for future research, interpretation strategies and the management of associated files.
%Z The NRM is part of the Science Museum Group, the umbrella organisation which also comprises the Science Museum, the Science and Industry Museum, Locomotion, and the National Science and Media Museum.
%Z Problematically, Rhodesian imagery and symbolism is also commonly used by far-right groups, particularly in the US, where the name is sometimes used as shorthand for white supremacism (see Ismay, J, 2018, ‘Rhodesia’s Dead — but White Supremacists Have Given It New Life Online’, The New York Times, 10 April). There is therefore an additional need to contextualise objects associated with ‘Rhodesia’ so that SMG’s online database, Collections Online, can provide well-researched information among the disinformation and potentially harmful content found via search engines. For the carriage’s entry on Collections Online, see Rhodesian Railways Carriage 1928 (accessed 29 November 2024).
%Z The ‘Open for All’ strategy is outlined in a document published on SMG’s website. See ‘Open for All Strategy, 2022–2025’, Science Museum Group. Available at: Open for All Strategy (accessed 29 November 2024).
%Z See ‘Inclusive Displays and Interpretation: Exploring Our Colonial History’, Science Museum Group, 2021, pp 1–12. Available at: Inclusive Displays and Interpretation (accessed 29 November 2024).
%Z  ‘Vehicle Sheets’, Barbara Gribling, 26 April 2010, National Railway Museum (NRM), p 7. This research paper draws on correspondence with an independent historian named Sue Lawrence, who is believed to have now passed away. Lawrence used drawings to compile a comprehensive database of RR rolling stock. For the drawings, see ‘Rhodesia Railways (RR) CFS-2’, Sue Lawrence Drawings, British Overseas Historical Railway Trust (BOHRT), p 106. There are some inconsistencies between the database and press releases from the time, suggesting that the database was perhaps unfinished when BOHRT acquired it. For example, for coach no. 121 (CFS-3), ‘Rhodesia Railways Carriages Part 2: Composite First, Second Class Carriages’, Sue Lawrence Drawings, BOHRT, there is a different construction date (1935) to that which is included in a press release in the Railway Gazette, 30 November 1928, pp 699–701. 
%Z See MS 99/2/51, Metro-Cammell Collection, The Library of Birmingham
%Z ‘Vehicle Sheets’, Barbara Gribling, 26 April 2010, NRM, pp 8–9
%Z RR CFS-2, Sue Lawrence Drawings, BOHRT, p 106. Converting passenger coaches to composite vehicles was common practice on colonial railways when there was an insufficient number of passengers to fill the available first-class carriages.
%Z RR CFS-2, Sue Lawrence Drawings, BOHRT, p 106. The practice was gradually phased out shortly after the Second World War.
%Z ‘Vehicle Sheets’, Barbara Gribling, 26 April 2010, NRM, p 8, footnote 25 
%Z See Calvert (Calvert, G M, 2005, Sitimela: A History of the Zambesi Saw Mills Logging Railway 1911–1972 (Bulawayo: Barotse Development Trust)) for a history of the ZSR.
%Z Shepherd later attributed the ZSR and Kaunda’s approval to the donation of a helicopter that he purchased with funds raised mostly from auctioning some of his paintings. See Shepherd, 1983, pp 180–84. 
%Z The letter is reproduced in Shepherd (1983, chapter 10), which also offers an account of the above. For a comprehensive account of the UDI and its legacies, see Schwarz, B, 2011, The White Man’s World (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press)
%Z According to Sathnam Sanghera (Sanghera, S, 2003, ‘Sir Jack of all trades’, Financial Times, 15 November), Hayward referred to himself as ‘the Cecil Rhodes of the 20th century’. Rhodes is known for his dream of a ‘Cape-to-Cairo’ railway across the African continent, although this never came to fruition. 
%Z Several quotations for the carriage’s restoration include an assessment of its condition. See technical file 2005-7446, NRM.
%Z Handwritten note, N.D., David Shepherd file, Bristol Archives
%Z For an overview of the steam preservation movement in Britain, see Carter (Carter, I, 2008, 'Chapter 5' British Railway Enthusiasm (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press).
%Z David Shepherd to Andrew Scott, 13 August 2001, technical file 2005-7445, NRM
%Z Scott to Shepherd, 18 October 2005, technical file 2005-7445, NRM
%Z Scott to Shepherd, 19 November 2007, technical file 2005-7445, NRM. ‘NRM Plus’ is occasionally referred to as ‘NRM+’ by NRM staff in the locomotive and carriage’s technical files; the former is the most common usage.
%Z John McGoldrick to John Clarke, 22 July 2010, technical file 2010-7157, NRM
%Z Ed Bartholomew to Lyn Whitton, 30 October 2007, technical file 2005-7445, NRM suggests that the carriage had to be ‘partially dismantled’ before it could have cleared the bridge on Leeman Road, the main access road to the NRM. Other problems would have arisen due to the NRM’s Great Hall – where the carriage would have been displayed – being limited in space and equipped to accommodate standard-gauge (4 ft 8 ½ in) rail vehicles. The carriage has a gauge of 3 ft 6 in, commonly known as ‘Cape gauge’ because of its use by the Cape Colony (a former British colony in present-day South Africa). Cape gauge was widely used in Southern Africa, including in Rhodesia. The carriage’s gauge also meant that it could not be transported on the British railway network. See ‘Project Form Concept Stage’, Ed Bartholomew, 24 April 2008, technical file 2005-7446, NRM.
%Z In South Africa, ‘grand apartheid’ referred to the political and physical separation of racial groups as it was written in law, while ‘petty apartheid’ referred to the informal mechanisms that enforced segregation in public places.
%Z The SRANC was a Black nationalist political party active in Southern Rhodesia from 1957 until it was outlawed by the white minority government in 1959. It grew from the Southern Rhodesian chapter of the African National Congress (ANC), a political party in South Africa that opposed the National Party’s policy of apartheid that was imposed after it came to power in 1948.
%Z Rhodesia Herald, 18 October 1957
%Z Rhodesia Herald, 23 October 1957
%Z Annual Report 1975, Zoological Society of London, REP/1/28, ZSL Archives, p 13. The zoo was later renamed Whipsnade Wild Animal Park before its latest rebranding as ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. 
%Z Umfolozi was a game reserve in Zululand (a historical region in South Africa, now part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal; see Brooks, Brooks, S, 2005, ‘Images of “Wild Africa”: nature tourism and the (re)creation of Hluhluwe game reserve, 1930–1945’, Journal of Historical Geography, 31(2), pp 220–240. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2004.12.020, pp 222–24) and the former home of a herd of endangered white rhinoceroses that were brought to Whipsnade for conservation. The W&UR was which was operated by a private company named Pleasurerail Limited and was renamed the Great Whipsnade Railway (GWR) when it was acquired by the ZSL in 1990. See End of Year Report 1990, GWR, WHI/14, ZSL Archives. The W&UR’s archival records are housed in the GWR’s signal box. For a concise overview of the railway, see Thomas, C, 2019, ‘The Great Whipsnade Railway’, Railway Magazine, December, pp 50–54. 
%Z ‘Insertion into Schedule of Loan Agreement’, enclosed with Jo Tolhurst to Gareth Griffiths, 19 July 1999, David Shepherd file, Bristol Archives.
%Z This included a film screening of Last Train to Mulobezi in 2012 at Locomotion. See Northern Echo, 2012, ‘Rare footage of African railway on show at North-East museum’, 26 December (accessed 10 October 2024)
%Z See correspondence between the NRM and the Zimbabwe Unit within the African Directorate at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 18 May 2010, technical file 2005-7446, NRM.
%Z ‘Estimated costs to restore Rhodesia Railways Coach No 1808’, Appleby Heritage Centre Limited, January 2008, technical file 2005-7446, NRM. The intention to re-letter the carriage is evidenced in correspondence between SMG and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which took place for reasons unknown prior to the carriage’s restoration. SMG supplied the FCO with a specification diagram to indicate ‘how it [the carriage] will eventually look’, which included the ‘Rhodesia Railways’ lettering. See correspondence held in technical file 2005-7446, NRM.
%Z Personal communications.
%Z ‘Inclusive Displays and Interpretation: Exploring Our Colonial History’, Science Museum Group, 2021, pp 1–12. Available at: Inclusive Displays and Interpretation (accessed 29 November 2024). See Sera‐Shriar (2023, p 314) for further analysis on this section of the guidelines.
%Z Andrew Scott to David Shepherd, 18 October 2005, technical file 2005-7445, NRM
%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/challenging-museum-narratives-the-case-of-a-rhodesia-railways-carriage/
%J Science Museum Group Journal