A new piece of artwork, inspired by the role of railways in the standardisation of time, will go on show this spring at Didcot Railway Centre

The artwork ‘The Train Effect’ is a film installation created by kinetic sculpture and moving image artist Savinder Bual and will be shown at Didcot Railway Centre ahead of being streamed online.

The installation is inspired by Great Western Railway’s introduction of ‘Railway Time’ in 1840 which meant a single, standardised time was actioned upon its line and later throughout railway station in Great Britain.

Artist, Savinder Bual said: “The installation is about our relationship with time, using the history of the railways as a framework,”

“The railways were instrumental in shaping our modern perception of time and I want to use them to prompt people to think about time from different perspectives.”

The installation shows Didcot Railway Centre’s engine turntable which is 21m across being turned by hand by a number of the museum’s volunteers who would usually be found driving the museum’s heritage engines. The artwork has been filmed overhead by a drone with locomotive No. 2999 ‘Lady of Legend’ rotating like the hands of a clock.

Savinder also said: “By showing that a small action by just two people can create an immense change – in this case, moving a 130-tonne engine – I want to show that we have the power to renegotiate how we think about time,”

“Not only do we need to take a longer-term view of how we think about ‘now’ and ‘the future’, so we can look after the planet for future generations, perhaps we should also be focusing more on the natural cycles which were replaced by standardised time,” said Savinder.

Clive Hetherington, Chief Executive of Didcot Railway Centre, said: “Savinder’s installation is hugely relevant to the site, to the people who visit and to our many volunteers who run the museum and restore and drive our locomotives. I hope it will surprise people and stretch their imaginations.”

‘Lady of Legend’ is a re-creation locomotive that would have been seen in the past on the Great Western Railway through a time period from 1902 to 1953. The locomotive has been built using a mix of surviving parts from other Great Western Railway locos and brand new components.

‘The Train Effect’ will be available to see in the Didcot Railway Centre’s original 1930s waiting room where visitors usually wait to board trains on the centre’s two lines and can be seen from Saturday the 2uth of May until Sunday the 4th of September 2022 after which it will be streamed online via: https://www.savinderbual.com

The project is part of a programme called Meeting Point which is led by contemporary art specialists Arts & Heritage http://www.artsandheritage.org.uk and presents art in unexpected locations and supports small and medium-sized museums to commission artists creating relationships within the contemporary art field and heritage sectors.