African dignitary visits Shildon museum to strengthen Sierra Leone links (From The Advertiser Series)

African dignitary visits Shildon museum to strengthen Sierra Leone links

5:34pm Tuesday 11th September 2012 in News

THE Deputy High Commissioner of Sierra Leone has visited a railway museum to help celebrate the links between County Durham and Africa.
Tamba Ngegba travelled from London to Locomotion: The National Railway Museum at Shildon to take part in the event last weekend.
His visit formed part of weekend of events at a Sierra Leone Festival at the Shildon museum.
The exhibition was set up to celebrate the links formed between the UK National Railway Museum and the Sierra Leone National Railway Museum in Freetown.
Anthony Coulls, senior curator of rail vehicles at Locomotion, said: “It was great that Mr Ngegba was able to come up to the museum.
“We had a band that played the Sierra Leone national anthem and there were displays of photos from Sierra Leone and a demonstration of models from the country.
“The event was a great success and we had more than 1,900 visitors to the museum over the festival weekend.”
A narrow gauge locomotive from Sierra Leone is on show at the museum and a new display about the Sierra Leone Government Railway has been opened for the event.
The Locomotion’s learning team has also worked with local schools to explore themes from Sierra Leone and some of the youngster’s work was on show.