London Transport Museum
Another name of the London Transport Museum is the LT Museum. You can visit it in two locations. The first one, Covent Garden, with the main site, and the other in Acton, known as London Transport Museum Depot. The general purpose of the museum is preservation and conservation 200 years old heritage of transportation, which characterizes the capital of United Kingdoms.
Museum at Covent Garden
The Covent Garden is characterized by a Victorian glass and iron building. At first it was the place of the vegetable, flower and fruit market. The designer of the construction was William Rogers. He created the plan of a flower market in 1871. The museum is located between Tavistock Street, Willington Street, Russell Street and near the market square. In 1980 the London Transport Museum inhabited the building, which the market left in 1971. The first collections of the London Transport Museum could be seen by visitors in the Syon Park in the year 1973. Before that the location of the museum was in Clapham, then in Syon Park.
The museum had to be partially closed down because of a major redecoration in September 2005 and was reopened in November 2007. The refurbishment covered the cost of £22 million and was conducted by Bryan Avery of Avery Associates. This way the museum could expand the display collection. The mission of the museum is to show the public how the transport has changed in years. Among 45 000 exhibits, divided between the two locations, one may find: buses, trains, information boards, maps, photos, old timetables and posters.
Photo from: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractions-g186338-Activities-c49-zfn7235709-London_England.html
Museum at Acton
As previously mentioned, Museum Depot is located in Acton. It is the west of London. What is more, the Museum has functioned since October 1999. Here you may find a majority of the museum’s exhibits. It is very important to possess the knowledge, because you probably won’t be able to see them at the museum in Covent Garden. The localisation and space of the Museum Depot allows to accommodate the collection which includes numerous items, some of them being too large to be shown in the Museum in Covent Garden. The space of the Museum at Acton occupies about 6000 square meters. It requires particular environment and secure control to preserve 370,000 exhibits of all kinds. The museum at Acton shows both the rail and the road collection.
This spacious area covers a rail connection of London Underground. The Museum stores and shows numerous trams, buses, engines, trolleybuses, wagons, railroad cars, coaches, locomotives and other vehicles. The public can’t visit Museum regularly, because the creators are still delivering equipment and are improving the space with a shop, a ticket office and other facilities for visitors. However the public can visit museums exhibition on special events. For example themed exhibitions which are called Open Weekends – three times a year. You can get there fast from the Acton Town tube station.
The Collection of the Museum
The London General Omnibus Company, which abbreviation is the LGOC, at first appealed to create the museum at the beginning of the 20th century. Because they wanted to protect and take care of the traditional buses, which public transport in London wasn’t using any more. Then London Electric Railway (LER) overtook the London General Omnibus Company. Since then the collection of the museum was enlarged and included also the rail vehicles.
Photo from: https://www.londonxlondon.com/london-transport-museum-depot/
The next step in museum growth was overtaking the London Electric Railway by the London Passenger Transport Board. It was in the 1930’s. Finally the organisation has become the Transport for London – TfL and also the contemporary authority of transport. At first some houses became the places to collect the exhibits. The important part in history of the Museum of British Transport is an unexploited tram depot at Clapham High Street. Since 1963 to 1972 the depot transformed into a supermarket.
Later the Syon Park at Brentford became a house for the Museum. It was from 1973 to 1977. But finally Covent Garden was chosen as the main location, the transformation took place in 1980. However a lot of collection ended up in the National Railway Museum in York in 1975. At the beginning, the museum at Covent Garden did not have too many items, some of them were trams, busses, trolleybuses and rail vehicles. Within years of he 19th and 20th the situation was under a constant change, the Museum had collected numerous exhibits relating to marketing of the customer services. Moreover the displays have shown the relation and the influence of transport networks on citizens.
The Shop
In London Transport Museum you will find a shop with unlimited number of transport related items. Among them you may find a lot of reproductions, models, posters, souvenirs and gifts which can also be purchased online. Buying these items, you support the museum’s functioning and development. In the 2012 the museum sold, for example, the luggage racks which came from the unused Metropolitan Line trains.
The museum canteen
In the area of the Museum you will also find also two café bars – The Upper Deck café bar and the Lower Deck café bar. They are great places for relaxing and refreshing yourself. Here you can choose a nutritious and tasty sandwich, homemade soup, hot and cold beverages and some desserts in a family friendly surrounding. There are also picnic spots for visitors’ in which you can eat your own homemade snack.
Location: London Transport Museum Covent Garden Piazza, London WC2E 7BB,United Kingdom
You can book tickets online https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/visit/plan-your-visit/opening-times-and-tickets
Visit The London Transport Museum and enjoy its amazing collections!