Museum Interactives on a Budget at the East Anglian Railway Museum

Museum interactives do not have to be technical, expensive, space-hungry, or dependent on staff or volunteers to run.

Over the past year, the East Anglian Railway Museum has hosted two public interactives, both of which have been highly successful. Neither required a large budget, specialist equipment, or staff supervision, yet both consistently engaged visitors.

The first activity began as a simple attempt to capture visitors’ memories of railways. While the original aim was to record recollections of the past, the results went far beyond that. We received memories stretching back decades, but also reflections on visitors’ experiences of the museum itself. Contributions came not only in words, but in drawings too. This proved especially valuable for children, who are often restricted from adding a comment in a traditional visitor book.

The interactive was deliberately simple: a small table, a length of wire with clips, pencils, and record cards. It formed part of a small exhibition, yet it generated an extraordinary level of engagement.

Encouraged by this success, we began to explore other ways to invite participation. We were fortunate to have a small, underused room that could be repurposed. To mark VE80, we created a modest display case and strung lines of string across the room, adding small craft pegs. Child-height tables and chairs were set out, along with pre-cut triangular bunting, crayons, and pencils. Visitors were left to create freely, and the strings quickly filled up, again and again.

After the summer holidays in 2025, the interactive evolved further. We removed the VE80 displays, and the bunting was changed to rough outlines of wagons or carriages, encouraging visitors to let their imaginations run wild. Each string begins with a simple steam locomotive, with visitors’ decorated wagons pegged on behind it.

Audience participation can feel daunting, particularly when compared with large museums and their extensive budgets. However, our experience shows that meaningful engagement can be achieved with nothing more than paper, pegs, pencils, and string.

Written by Jaki Collison, Trustee / HOD Curatorial and Displays at the East Anglian Railway Museum