coaches of the Hespertalbahn (Herspertal railway) and enjoy the trip along the Baldeney lake. The museum railway takes you from Essen-Kupferdreh to Haus Scheppen, a former vassal estate of the abbey of [...] powder or the smelting works producing steel. Only the Hespertalbahn bears witness of the region's industrial history. Built in 1877 as a standard gauge steam railway its main objective was to transport ores [...] required. Two years later railway enthusiasts established an association to preserve the outstanding industrial monument. Ever since the Hespertalbahn e.V. operates the railway with historic steam and diesel

It presents a few thousand exhibits related to power engineer­ing: from an iron and one-hundred-year-old booth of a street transform­er from Bytom, machines and power generators, measuring and lightin

Skansen is the open air museum that has given its name to museums in many European countries. For 70 years it has attracted more than two million visitors per annum. It was founded in 1891 by the ethnographer [...] present-day museum extends over 30 ha and includes more than 150 buildings. Hazelius’s purpose had been to display Swedish culture in the era before industrialisation, but there are many industrial buildings [...] doing research for a dictionary of the Swedish language. In 1872 he established the ethnographical museum that has involved into the present-day Nordiska Museet, and Skansen was a move from collecting artefacts

The technology and maritime museum in Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, illustrates many aspects of engineering, particularly those relating to transport. It is housed in a building of the 1950s which [...] is also a tiny 2-2-0T tank locomotive made in Trollhättan in 1888. There are special sections on industries that flourished in Malmö.

the Swedish National Museum, KF and the municipality of Varmdo came to an agreement by which the collection of Gustavsberg porcelain that had been displayed in the company museum should pass to the state [...] as the producer of high quality table wares and figurines. The company was acquired in 1937 by KF Industri Nordico, the Swedish co-operative union, who began the manufacture of sanitary wares and plastics [...] state through the National Museum. This mean that the collection could remain intact and that it could still be displayed at Gustavsberg. It comprises a remarkable range of wares manufactured between 1825

stimulated the growth of many industries, corn mills, oil mills, the manufacture of iron tools and above all of paper making. Such was the prosperity of these industries that the population of Mesnay between [...] between the 1790s and the 1860s never fell below 1,000. The museum describes the manufacture of cardboard and its application to the production of cartons. It is housed in a substantial building on a site [...] manufacture cartons have been preserved and some are demonstrated. From the late nineteenth century industry in the area was dominated by the company Hétier Père et Fils (Hétier & Son) established in 1888

were flooded by the sea. During the 1990s the industry was revived by a group of young entrepreneurs, La Coopérative des Sauniers de l’Ile de Ré, and the museum was established to explain to visitors the [...] Scandinavia, or by sea to Bordeaux and then by inland navigation to central and southern France. At the industry’s peak in the first half of the nineteenth century some 1,500 ha., about 18 per cent of the surface [...] explored by bicycle on a network of tracks that extends for 100 km. around the lagoons. The shop at the museum offers varied a variety of products from the co-operative, including flavoured salt, and picked samphire

continued until 1956. The project to establish a museum at the former mine began in 1986. The museum now prides itself in being a ‘musée souterrain’ (underground museum) which is justified since visitors are able [...] twentieth century when anthracite mining, commemorated at La Mine Image was the principal local industry. The extraction of anthracite in the region began in the seventeenth century and concluded in the [...] underground haulage. The headstock and other surface buildings of the mine are well-preserved. Here the museum shows films illustrating the history of mining, enhanced by recordings of former miners, and the

The museum, located in the noble 17th century mansion that once belonged to the owner of a hammer mill, is devoted to the history of water supply and to the achievements in constructing the Vienna spring [...] egion feeds the Austrian capital with 217,000 cubic meters drinking water daily. The SpringWater Museum documents how the second Vienna spring water line was built and illustrates the city’s water supply [...] displays provide insights in major aspects of the region’s geology and the protection of springs. The museum of local history primarily deals with the largest trade union of Innerberg based in Wildalpen which

almost on a cottage industry basis. The Museum of Transport opened in 1980 as a satellite building accommodating the growing collection of vehicles in the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, which began when Samuel [...] Samuel Bartleet gave the museum his collection of bicycles in 1938. The first motor car was acquired in 1952, and as the industry changed in the post-war years increasing numbers of historically important [...] cycles and then, from the 1880s to motor cars. During and after the Second World War the engineering industry in Coventry also encompassed the manufacture of machine tools, tractors and aircraft. Several of

century later. The textile industry specialised in furnishing fabrics and continued to prosper, exporting to most parts of the world, until decline came from the 1960s. The textile museum is centred on the company [...] in 2008, and gained its present name in 2009. Its displays illustrate every aspect of the textile industry in Flanders. Workshop sessions in which visitors can gain experience in weaving are a special feature

mill on the edge of the village of Esch-sur-Sûre in northern Luxembourg is both a museum of the woollen cloth industry in the vicinity and a visitor centre for the Upper Sûre Nature Park. Weaving for distant [...] municipality in 1990, and opened as a museum in 1992. The main building is of three storeys with an attic storey above, and extends along nine bays. Within it the museum displays all the machinery associated [...] second half of the nineteenth century were made by H Duesberg-Bosson of Verviers in Belgium. The museum is the starting point for trails through the nature park, and is used for many cultural events.

smelter, one of seven in Norway, remains in production and is part of Norsk Hydro ASA. The industrial museum was opened by the company in 1986 and illustrates many aspects of life in Høyanger since the [...] , of which there are 1,500 in the municipality, and for its stave churches. Høyanger became an industrial town in the early twentieth century after the establishment of hydro-electric power plants in the

the Far East, shoemaking in Germany declined, and it is no longer the principal industry in Hauenstein. The shoe museum, in a building of striking appearance in the Bauhaus style, covers the history of [...] town of about 4,000 people, which was one of the principal centres of the Palatinate shoemaking industry. Large-scale domestic manufacture of shoes in the region began after the Napoleonic Wars when the [...] Hauenstein. The first factory in Hauenstein was established by the brothers Seibel in 1886, and the industry subsequently prospered. There were 20 factories in the town by 1914. During the Second World War

and Noirmont which provided the spruce trees which were the raw material of the area’s principal industry. The production of wooden artefacts for distant markets had its origins in the sixteenth century [...] introduction of cardboard cartons for soft cheeses in the 1960s began a period of steady decline. The museum is located in a restored sawmill alongside the River Orbe which over the centuries provided power [...] power for cutting and shaping wood. A steam-powered saw is demonstrated from time to time. The museum displays tools used for sawing, boring and cleaving wood, but its chief attraction is the astonishingly

There was some contraction of the industry, but it remains lively, and today about 1,000 people work for small- and medium-sized companies in Sonneberg. The museum, located in a handsome baroque building [...] There was some contraction of the industry, but it remains lively, and today about 1,000 people work for small- and medium-sized companies in Sonneberg. The museum, located in a handsome baroque building [...] government policy forced toy manufacturers to join large–scale collectives. Ultimately the whole toy industry in East Germany was incorporated into one nationalised concern with 27,000 employees, 10,000 of

building and the machinery it housed has largely remained intact and represents a time capsule of industrial heritage. Consequently a whole range of working pumping equipment can still be seen and on steam [...] the oldest working triple expansion stream engine in the UK. Most engines are in working order. The Museum is set in a beautiful setting beside the River Wye in large grounds.

called Überseestadt, which is one of the largest urban development projects in Europe incorporating industry, the service sector, recreational and residential areas. Speicher XI is one of the quarter's rare [...] work was tough and often dangerous, especially for those who worked at the wharfs. Today the port museum Speicher XI revisits the heyday of Bremen's freeports by displaying the jobs involved in general

one of the mills in 1814, and now forms the only in situ exhibit in the open-air museum, which is part of the national museum, as is the mill at Brede. The latter is part of one of the best-preserved factory [...] of the reasons for the prosperity of the Danish capital. It has been called the Cradle of Danish Industry. The various mills were used for grinding grain, fulling woollen cloth, making gunpowder, working

is unrivalled by any other museum. Some 5,000 pieces are generally on display. The archaeology section of the museum is closely concerned with evidence of the ceramics industry that comes to light in excavations [...] The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (formerly the City Museum) occupies a purpose-designed building opened in 1981. It contains a collection of Staffordshire ceramics of every possible kind, earthenwares [...] both planned and otherwise. The museum also includes sections on the decorative arts (chiefly costume and textiles), geology and natural history. In the centre of the museum is a Spitfire fighter aircraft