London Transport Museum

Last Saturday I walked over to Covent Garden to visit the London Transport Museum. I have wanted to go for a while now, and I have a paper coming up on London's Tube stations, so I decided it was time to stop by. I walked in the front door and paid the 5 pound reduced entry fee for students, and was handed the green card pictured above. The woman at the desk explained that the museum was testing a new interactive feature to help guide visitors through the exhibits. In each of the 13 areas, there would be a hole punch machine that would mark your progress. She acknowledged that it seemed childish, but promised that it would be addicting. Indeed it was.

I headed through the door and up the ramp to the elevator. The building is set up so that you start at the 2nd floor (really the third, floor because what we call the first floor in the US is the ground floor in Europe, so the second floor is the first, and so on) and work your way back down. The top floor was all about the days of transportation before cars and electricity. To get across the River Thames, you took a steamboat or the London Bridge. To get around the city streets you took either a horse-drawn cab or bus. For long distance trips between cities, you could travel by stagecoach. Each of the horse-drawn vehicles were on display. They were either restorations or exact replicas, but I think that they were restorations.

The next level down was all about the birth of the steam locomotive and the development of the first railroads in England. Again, they had a real steam engine and several passenger cars on display that you could look in...a few you could even go inside. The exhibit also explained how railroads allowed for the expansion of London and the growth of its suburbs. What used to be far off country land became easily accessible communities for those who wanted to continue working in London but move the family outside of the harsh conditions within the city.

Finally, I reached the ground floor where the exhibits were more relevant to today's world. It described the evolution of the London Underground (the world's oldest subway system) from competing individually owned lines to one unified system. That system would eventually grow to include the bus and cab system. They had restored motor-driven buses on display, including the most famous London bus: the Routemaster. There were also displays on the future of London transport - in particular the extension of the Tube to the 2012 Olympic site. I spent about 3 hours there and had a great time...I have a feeling that I might have to go back before I leave, especially since I left my camera at home on this trip!