The London Transport Museum (often abbreviated as the LTM) is a

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

based in

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the

heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physica ...

of London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the history of it. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collections of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transportation in the city and in some instances beyond. The museum operates from two sites within London. The main site in Covent Garden uses the name of its parent institution, and is open to the public every day excluding over Christmas, having reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment. The other site, located in

Acton Acton may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Acton Australia * Acton, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Acton, Tasmania, a suburb of Burnie * Acton Park, Tasmania, a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania, formerly known as Acton Canada ...

, is known as the London Transport Museum Depot and is principally a storage site of historic artefacts that is open to the public on scheduled visitor days throughout the year. The museum was briefly renamed London's Transport Museum to reflect its coverage of topics beyond London Transport, but it reverted to its previous name in 2007 to coincide with the reopening of the Covent Garden site.

Museum (Covent Garden)

The_new_Routemaster_(London_Transport_Museum)

The museum's main facility is located in a Victorian iron and glass building that had formed part of the Covent Garden vegetable, fruit and flower market. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers in 1871 and is located between Russell Street, Tavistock Street, Wellington Street and the east side of the former market square. The market moved out in 1971, and the building was reopened as the London Transport Museum on 28 March 1980. The collection had been located at

Syon Park Syon Park is the garden of Syon House, the London home of the Duke of Northumberland in Isleworth in the London Borough of Hounslow. It was landscaped by Capability Brown in the 18th century, and it is Grade I listed by English Heritage under ...

since 1973 and before that had formed part of the British Transport Museum at

Clapham Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Early history ...

. On 4 September 2005 the museum closed for a major £22 million refurbishment designed by

Bryan Avery Bryan Robert Avery MBE RIBA (2 January 1944 – 4 July 2017) was an English architect, born in Wallingford, Berkshire. After his childhood years spent in Lymington in the New Forest, Hampshire, he studied architecture at Leicester College ...

of Avery Associates Architects to enable the expansion of the display collection to encompass the larger remit of TfL which administers all forms of public transport. Enhanced educational facilities were also required. The museum reopened on 22 November 2007.London Transport Museum Project Information
Archive.org copy from 19 November 2006 The entrance to the museum is from the Covent Garden Piazza, amongst the Piazza's many tourist attractions. The museum is within walking distance from both Covent Garden Underground station and

Charing Cross railway station Charing Cross railway station (also known as London Charing Cross) is a central London railway terminus between the Strand and Hungerford Bridge in the City of Westminster. It is the terminus of the South Eastern Main Line to Dover via Ashfo ...

Collection

The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the

London General Omnibus Company The London General Omnibus Company or LGOC, was the principal bus operator in London between 1855 and 1933. It was also, for a short period between 1909 and 1912, a motor bus manufacturer. Overview The London General Omnibus Company was fou ...

(LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by the

London Electric Railway The London Electric Railway (LER) was an underground railway company operating three lines on the London Underground. It was formed in 1910 and existed until 1933, when it was merged into the London Passenger Transport Board. History The LER wa ...

(LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of the

London Passenger Transport Board The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...

in the 1930s and as the organisation passed through various successor bodies up to TfL, London's current transport authority. The collection has had a number of homes. It was housed as part of the Museum of British Transport at a disused tram depot in

High Street (now a supermarket) from 1963 to 1972, and then at

in Brentford from 1973 to 1977, before being moved to Covent Garden in 1980. Most of the other exhibits moved to

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

on formation of the

National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant ...

in 1975. The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es,

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

es and

rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...

vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artefacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population. The first underground electric train, from 1890, can be seen here. Larger exhibits held at Acton depot include a complete

1938 stock The London Underground 1938 Stock was a London Underground tube stock design. A total of 1,121 cars were built by Metro-Cammell and Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company, Birmingham RC&W. An additional 173 cars were added to the fle ...

tube train as well as early locomotives from the first sub-surface and first deep-level lines.

Other Attractions

As of 2022, the museum offers three

simulator A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...

experiences: One

Elizabeth Line The Elizabeth line is a high-frequency hybrid urban–suburban rail service in London and its suburbs. It runs services on dedicated infrastructure in central London from the Great Western Main Line west of Paddington to and via Whitechapel ...

simulator featuring a cab, a stand-up smaller version of the later, and a

simulator complete with

deadman's handle A dead man's switch (see alternative names) is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally a ...

. In addition there is the Hidden London exhibition which has been extended until Autumn 2023, featuring a sized-down, walkthrough replica of the

Aldwych Aldwych (pronounced ) is a street and the name of the area immediately surrounding it in central London, England, within the City of Westminster. The street starts east-northeast of Charing Cross, the conventional map centre-point of the city ...

Ticket Hall and Down Street Blitz Shelter which Winston Churchill used during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The exhibition tells the story of some of London's abandoned stations and hidden transport infrastructure of which the museum offers some tours of. There is the Children's interactive area complete with

Optare Switch Mobility (originally called Optare) is an English bus manufacturer based in Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire. It is a subsidiary of Indian company Ashok Leyland. The company would be responsible for the EV operations of the group with ...

bus and the All Aboard play-zone for 0-7 year olds.

Museum Shop

The museum shop sells a wide range of books, reproduction posters, models, gifts and souvenirs, both at Covent Garden and online. Profits from sales support the museum's activities.

Transport links

Museum Depot (Acton)

The Museum Depot is located in

, west London, and was opened in October 1999. The depot holds the majority of the museum's collections which are not on display in the main museum in Covent Garden. It is the base for the museum's curators and conservators, and is used for the display of items too large to be accommodated in the main facility. The depot provides 6,000 square metres of storage space in secure, environmentally controlled conditions and houses over 370,000 items of all types, including many original works of art used for the museum's collections of

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

s, signs,

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s, engineering drawings and

uniform A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, ...

s. The building has both road access and a rail connection to the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

network, which allows the storage and display of significant numbers of

es,

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can ...

and other vehicles. The depot is not regularly open to the public, but is fully equipped to receive visitors, with ticket office, shop, a

miniature railway A ridable miniature railway (US: riding railroad or grand scale railroad) is a large scale, usually ground-level railway that hauls passengers using locomotives that are often models of full-sized railway locomotives (powered by diesel or petro ...

, and other visitor facilities. It opens to the public for pre-booked guided tours on several dates each month, and also for special events, including themed open weekends – usually three times per year. It is within easy walking distance of Acton Town Underground station.

References

External links

*
Resource showing the entire collections on display at the Covent Garden site
* ttps://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/photographs Explore the online photographic collection of over 16,000 photographs {{authority control Transport museums in London City museums in the United Kingdom History museums in London Railway museums in England Bus museums in England Museums in the City of Westminster History of transport in London Museums established in 1980 1980 establishments in England Covent Garden Charities based in London Transport for London