Tag: Engine Shed

New composition to premiere at Railway 200 celebration event

LNER has been announced as sponsor of the world premiere of a new music composition celebrating 200 years of the modern railway called ‘Engine Shed’.

The piece, composed by Shildon-born Edinburgh-based composer Deborah Shaw (aka AURORA ENGINE), will be performed by the Linlithgow String Orchestra at a free public concert on Sunday 9 November 2025.

The project is supported by the charity Making Music and their ‘Adopt a Music Creator’ programme.

As well as supporting Railway 200, the concert also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the founding of the string orchestra and 90 years of the charity Making Music.

The concert will take place at the historic St. Michael’s Parish Church, Linlithgow with the performance starting at 7pm on Sunday 9 November 2025.

You can book your free tickets via the orchestra’s website here. 

Deborah Shaw, the composer of the new celebratory piece of music, is from the historic railway town of Shildon, situated on the original route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which is front and centre of this year’s celebratory Railway 200 events. Her new striking work explores Scotland’s rail history through music while amplifying often unheard voices.

Commissioned through Making Music’s ‘Adopt a Music Creator’ initiative and developed in collaboration with the Linlithgow String Orchestra, their musical director Bill Jones, and with mentorship from composer Ailie Robertson, the composition explores sounds of the railways, whilst reimagining stories of trains, industry, and identity.

Deborah explains: “The piece incorporates snippets of archival recordings and field sounds from the steam engine ‘Twizell’ which was built by Robert Stephenson & Company and is now lovingly cared for by the Tanfield Railway. Orchestral cues are directed with authentic LNER guards whistles and traditional railway hand signals.

“This new composition is so much more than a celebration of trains, I wanted my work to shine a light on the underrepresented voices in both rail and music, from women and marginalised workers to African American railroad traditions.”

Edinburgh-based harpist, songwriter and sonic artist Aurora Engine  (Deborah Shaw) releases her new single ‘Coal Dust’, the first from an upcoming EP  ‘Railway Queen‘ exploring women’s roles in industrial towns 

 LISTEN HERE

WAV MP3 HERE

VIDEO SHORT TEASER HERE

Raw, mechanical textures intertwine with harp, electronics, and voice, creating a sonic landscape that merges the industrial and magical. The EP has been written, recorded and produced by Deb mixing  collected industrial sounds. 

‘Coal Dust’ single draws inspiration from women like the Winterton Sisters early pioneers in railway signalling engineering, as well as the countless women who kept domestic and emotional labour turning while industrial progress was built around them.

Field recordings from steam trains collected by Deborah herself can be heard as a steady undercurrent, collected from railways towns where she was brought up. Lyrics blend nursery rhymes with story of labour and graft.

Funded by Stockton and Darlington Railway for Rail 200 celebrations, and PRS Foundation

Aurora Engine www.auroraengine.com

Aurora Engine / Deborah Shaw is a composer, harpist and pianist based in Edinburgh originally from CO. Durham.

Fusing real instruments, voice and progressive electronica, her work encapsulates a singular and striking sonic landscape. Currently with Hen Hoose as a mentee, recent performances include Celtic Collections, Belladrum and Hidden Door Festival.

Her 2024 work Flutter  about women and Torette’s syndrome is being programmed at CRYPTIC  2026. 

‘Magical and Delicate’ Tom Robinson BBC 6 Music

‘Splendid….mellifluous harp playing elegantly woven around electronic fizzles…dark magic abounds’ – Electronic Sound Magazine (Feb 2024)

Scotland’s National Building Conservation Centre opens tomorrow

The Engine Shed is inviting people to come and find out what the new national building conservation centre has to offer as it opens its doors to the public for the first time tomorrow (Monday 3 July).

Based at Forthside Way, Stirling, the new learning and visitor resource will serve as the national conservation hub, using world-leading innovation to bring Scotland’s built heritage to life through technology and hands-on activities.

Open six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, the centrepiece of the free visitor experience is a large-scale map of Scotland compiled from hi-resolution satellite images, from which additional information can be accessed using an iPad as an augmented reality device, providing people with the opportunity to explore Scotland’s buildings, plus the chance to discover how the Engine Shed is digitally documenting Scotland’s heritage.

To celebrate the opening, from Monday 3 July, visitors can enjoy a suite of activities and workshops, including joining a tour of the building to find out more about its purpose and what it will offer the public, getting creative by carving a masterpiece from soap, or signing up to a talk from Historic Environment Scotland’s Head of Technical Education and Training to hear more about the building’s development from former MOD munitions shed to pioneering learning hub.

Dorothy Hoskins, Technical Outreach and Education Manager at the Engine Shed, said: “We are absolutely delighted to open the doors and welcome the public into the Engine Shed. We have so much planned for the opening with lots of activities and workshops on offer throughout the summer, we really want people to come down and experience the Engine Shed first-hand and get involved in the different activities that are on and find out more about what will be coming up later in the year too.”

People from across Scotland are invited to visit the Engine Shed to find out more about its summer programme of events designed to encourage a greater understanding of Scotland’s historic buildings and traditional craft skills, as part of Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology.

Every week during the summer, the Engine Shed will host different building-related themed activity sessions, talks and demonstrations. Workshops will include creating pieces inspired by Mackintosh’s designs currently on temporary display at the Engine Shed, which were recovered from the fire that affected the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building in 2014.

Dorothy continued: “Our summer programme is designed to inspire people and demonstrate the range of skills, materials and technologies that are used in preserving our traditional buildings across Scotland. The Engine Shed is an inclusive space where everyone can come along and discover more about our historic environment through workshops, exhibitions, events, tutorials and training. We hope the public will be really impressed with what we have done with the space and what will be on offer.”

The Engine Shed has also launched eight internship opportunities centred around the new learning and visitor resource. Applicants are being encouraged to apply for the range of internships, covering subjects such as conservation science, climate change, collections management, traditional materials, digital visualisation and conservation architecture.

Each internship will last between 12 – 18 months and will provide students with the chance to learn within its specialist science, digital or climate change teams, studying the impact of climate change on Scotland’s historic environment and the adaptation of traditional buildings.

For more information on the Engine Shed and its summer programme or internship opportunities, please visit www.engineshed.org.