Fortunately it's only £9,000

We think this might be overpaying a little even at this low sum:

The National Railway Museum will investigate steam trains for links to slavery as forces behind the expansion of colonial power are readdressed.

The museum, in York, is one of a group of organisations examining how steam power aided imperial expansion and drove sugar mills on plantations and cotton gins in industrial cities.

Trains will be assessed for their role in facilitating expansion, according to experts involved in the £9,000 research project – entitled "Slavery and Steam: steam power, railways and colonialism" – which is backed by the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

Given that Stephenson proved the viability of railways after the abolition of the slave trade and only just before the Empire abolition of slavery we’d think that the link might not be all that great. Between railways and causing or exploiting slavery that is.

The correct link between steam engines, rather than steam rail, and slavery is that the one entirely destroyed the economics of the other. Yes, Adam Smith did indeed suggest that free labour was more productive than slave. But it was mechanical power being made available that wholly killed the necessity of human and animal muscle power as the energy source of the civilisation.

£9,000 does seem a little much to be spending to confirm that already well known point. But then it is only £9,000 so why not allow them their little fun?