The Association for British Transport & Engineering Museums (ABTEM) has recently appointed the International Railway Heritage Consultancy (IRHC) to work with them to produce new guidelines for museums and private collectors with larger and working objects. The guidelines will cover stationary engines, industrial machinery, road vehicles, aircraft, railway vehicles, ships, boats and other working items.

Standards first published by the former Museums and Galleries Commission have been used widely by specialists and non-specialists alike since they were first published in 1994, but after two decades of experience now need updating.

ABTEM are looking for interested parties such as private collectors of transport, agricultural or industrial artefacts, national and regional museums with any large or working objects in their collections that would be able to feed in to the process by either responding to questionnaires or submitting case studies that can illustrate the decision making process and conservation ethos of a particular treatment.

Selected case studies will be included in the new guidelines, available at the end of 2017.

The guidelines will be widely publicised and promoted, including through a programme of seminars scheduled between October 2017 and March 2018.

For further information contact Efstathios Tsolis, Associate Consultant, on tsolis@efstathios.co.uk or 0772 6419551.

For more details and for previous iterations of the guidance click here