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| Established | 1980; 45 years ago (1980) |
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| Location | Covent Garden London,WC2 |
| Coordinates | 51°30′43″N0°07′18″W / 51.51194°N 0.12167°W /51.51194; -0.12167 |
| Type | Transport museum |
| Visitors | 411,766 (2019)[1] |
| Owner | Transport for London |
| Public transit access | |
| Website | www.ltmuseum.co.uk |
TheLondon Transport Museum (LTM) is a transport museum based inCovent Garden, London. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the heritage ofLondon's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the history of it. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collections ofLondon Transport, but, since the creation ofTransport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transport in the city and in some instances beyond.[2]
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,[3] having reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment. The other site, located inActon, is 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 also runs a programme of guided tours, Hidden London, which takes visitors to part of theLondon Underground that are typically closed to the public, including disused stations and wartime shelters.[4]
The museum was briefly renamedLondon'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.
In July 2024, the Museum unveiled new branding in an attempt to reflect its coverage of all of London's transport system, not exclusively buses and trains. The new logo - still of roundel design - incorporates all the colours of TfL's transport modes.[5]
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The museum's main facility is located in aVictorian 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[6] 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.[7] The collection had been located atSyon Park since 1973 and before that had formed part of the British Transport Museum atClapham.[8]
On 4 September 2005 the museum closed for a £22 million refurbishment designed byBryan Avery of Avery Associates Architects[9] 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.[10][11]
The entrance to the museum is from the Covent Garden Piazza. The museum is within walking distance from bothCovent Garden Underground station andCharing Cross railway station.[12]
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The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by theLondon General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by theLondon Electric Railway (LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of theLondon Passenger Transport Board 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 inClapham High Street (now a supermarket) from 1963 to 1972, and then at Syon Park inBrentford from 1973 to 1977, before being moved to Covent Garden in 1980.[13] Most of the other exhibits moved toYork on formation of theNational Railway Museum in 1975.
The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams,trolleybuses and 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.[14]
Larger exhibits held at Acton depot include a complete1938 stock tube train as well as early locomotives from the first sub-surface and first deep-level lines.
In 2015 the museum launched a programme of guided tours under the name Hidden London. Tours of disused stations had previously been run by the museum since the 1990s, with one-off events taking place during the 2010s.[4]
The tours give visitors exclusive access to parts of the London underground network that are usually closed to the public and cover the history of London through its underground network. They are written using findings from the museum’s extensive archives and collection.[4]
Locations explored include disused stationsAldwych andDown Street, as well as secret parts ofPiccadilly Circus,Charing Cross andEuston stations; and awartime deep level shelter in Clapham South.[15] In 2023, a tour ofBaker Street underground station was added to the programme in celebration of the 160th anniversary of the London Underground.[16] In 2024 the museum launched tourHolborn: The Secret Platforms.
A new tour,Dover Street: Alight here for Green Park, will also start in January 2025.[17]
There are also a series of virtual tours available,[18] as well as a walking tour which covers the area surrounding the museum.[19]
Profits from Hidden London tours are used to support the museum's charitable activities as an education and heritage charity.[19]
As of 2022, the museum offers threesimulator experiences: OneElizabeth Line simulator featuring a cab, a stand-up smaller version of the later,[clarification needed] and a1938 stock simulator complete withdeadman's handle.
A Hidden London exhibition ran until July 2023,[20] featuring a sized-down, walkthrough replica of theAldwych Ticket Hall andDown Street Blitz Shelter which Winston Churchill used duringWorld War II. The exhibition told 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 withOptare bus and the All Aboard play-zone for 0-7 year olds.[21]
The museum shop sells a wide range of books, reproduction posters, models, gifts and souvenirs, both at Covent Garden and online.[22] Profits from sales support the museum's activities.
The Museum Depot is located in Acton, 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.[23]
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 ofposters,signs,models, photographs,engineering drawings anduniforms. The building has both road access and a rail connection to theLondon Underground network, which allows the storage and display of significant numbers of buses, trams, trolleybuses, railrolling stock and other vehicles.[23]
The depot is not regularly open to the public, but is fully equipped to receive visitors, with ticket office, shop, aminiature railway,[24] 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 ofActon Town Underground station.[23]
| London Buses | Aldwych11,15,26,76,172 Aldwych243,341 |
| London Underground | Covent Garden.svg) (4 min walk)Leicester Square |
| National Rail | Charing Cross (7 min walk) |
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