A BUMPER festival of transport comes to one Gwent museum this weekend, and at another there's the rare chance to go behind the scenes.

Griffithstown Railway Museum's annual spring gala gets into gear on Saturday and Sunday. It's a celebration of road and rail transport with something for kids of all ages.

There'll be a collection of classic cars, vintage lorries, buses and a steam roller, on display, and a miniature steam railway will be offering rides through the grounds.

Hot and cold refreshments will be available and there will be stalls selling everything from transport models to bric-a-brac.

All that is in addition to the musuem proper, which is packed with railway memorabilia, models, hundreds of photographs and its newest attraction, a mammoth model railway, which fills an entire room.

You can see all that at the bargain price of £1 for adults and 50p for children.

Big Pit Mining Museum is fast becoming one of Wales' biggest attractions.

Its recent £7 million revamp has created new developments and galleries and helped pull in a record number of visitors.

Next week, during a special initiative, called Objects of Desire - the art of collecting, the public is being given the chance to go behind the scenes and see the museum's conservators at work, cataloguing and restoring artefacts. There will also be the chance to see some of the thousands of items which aren't currently on display.

These include giant coal cutting machines, which have been restored to working order, as well as transport equipment and other heavy machinery. Big Pit is one of only four museums in the UK left in the running for a major arts award - the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year.

Last month it became the only Welsh attraction left in the running, when it reached the last four.

Objects of Desire runs at Big Pit from May 21-27 from 2pm to 4.30pm, and like the museum proper, which is open from 9.30am - 5.30pm, it is free. For more details call 01495 790311.

Griffithstown Railway Museum is open from 10-5pm, call 01495 762908.