London’s Transport Museum

“By conserving and explaining the Capital city's transport heritage, London Transport Museum offers people an understanding of the Capital's past development and engages them in the debate about its future.”

London Transport Museum: About Us

The museum is home to a truly enviable number of items in historical terms, housed at two sites, one in the heart of London at Covent Garden, the other is at Acton to the South West of the city. The latter performs a dual role in that it acts as a depot for both saved buses and trains, whilst also housing thousands of other collectable items not on show at Covent Garden...

The Covent Garden Museum

Located unassumingly to one side of Covent Garden sits a gem, a history lesson telling the story of London’s transport network. The London Transport Museum has lived in the Victorian grade II listed Flower Market building since 1980. Before then it had spend much of the 1970s at Syon Park, Brentford and prior to that in a former bus garage in Clapham.

The story inside tells of how the original Metropolitan Railway stuttered into life, how the developing network helped the suburbs grow and enabled London to become the international financial hub that it is today.

The collection displayed at Covent Garden and the layout itself has undergone a number of transformations. In 1990, for example, to celebrate its 10 year anniversary £2 million was invested in upgrading its display to provide additional floorspace allowing the story of the underground tube train. When reopened in December 1993 by the well travelled Michael Palin another £4 million had been invested refitting the museum to show every aspect of London’s transport network.

Then twelve years later the museum closed for nearly two years having raised £22.4 million of investment from a number a varied sources such as the National Lottery (£9.4 million), TfL (£5 million), the LT Museum Friends as well as a range of other donations from a range of commercial and private sources. Reopened by the then London Mayor, Ken Livingstone and designer Vivienne Westwood on 8 November 2007, this most recent refurbishment includes renewable energy in the form of solar panels to help reduce its energy costs.

In its current form the LT Museum attempts to be more interactive than its predecessors. The story starts at the top level explaining how Londoners used to travel around the capital prior to the underground taking the visitor on a journey.

On the mid-level Q23 car 4248, 1923 Metropolitan loco No. 5 John Hampden, steam loco 23 built back in 1866 and former Metropolitan car 400 can be found, however the majority of the larger exhibits can be found at ground level including a range of buses, 38ts driving motor car 11182 and an 1890 City & South London Railway car. So extensive is the London Transport Museum’s collection that approximately 1% of its

total collection of objects can be displayed at Convent Garden at a time. Many smaller exhibits are rotated with items also stored at the Acton Depot... speaking of which...

Acton Depot

Opened in 1999, the London Transport Museum stores the bulk of its collection at its storage depot just across the road from Acton Town station. The museum depot sits on what was once sidings serving the Underground’s Acton depot and was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with the expressed intention of being the first museum in Britain to allow access to its entire collection. There are 6 roads for preserved railway stock, each able to store 4 vehicles as well as a large collection of buses, including an early 1980s Leyland Titan. Smaller exhibits include a vast collection of station signage and furniture, 100,000+ photographs, countless plans & drawings, staff uniforms and original London Transport/Underground marketing material. Its fair to say that the collection is truly extensive and there are a number of different ongoing restoration projects.

Highlights of the railway stock stored here include:

  • ESL 107 (originally two Central Line DM’s converted into a single departmental unit)
  • 4 car Q stock unit (currently undergoing restoration)
  • 4 car Standard stock
  • Standard stock DM 3327
  • 4 car 38ts unit semi-regularly used for railtours
  • Former Waterloo & City Line car 61
  • R stock DM 22679
  • 67ts DM 3052 + cab & short section of passenger car of 3110
  • 72ts Mk2 unrefurbished DM 3530
  • 86ts prototype car 16

The depot is opened for two weekends every year, normally in March and October, which are both themed. The March open weekend, for example, usually to focuses on London Transport in miniature... in other words model railway layouts.

To discover more about the London Transport Museum and the variety of different themes that it analysis with regard to the history of transport in London, visit the museum website.

To find out more about specific items that have been saved, both by the museum or those in other private collections, click on the Preserved Trains button above.