London Transport Museum

Website: http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk

I've been so busy for the past three weeks I've had no time for my Local Tourist trips - until today! I'm not sure... maybe it's because it was on my list, maybe it's the thrilling name of the museum or maybe it had something to do with their latest extensive advertising campaign but today ABJ and I visited the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

After buying our £6 student tickets we entered a mysteriously modern red-neon lit corridor:
This showed video clips in the walls about transport systems in other cities. We walked up the ramp and found, at the end a huge London tube map on the wall. Round the corner were two lifts and signs saying "Continue your journey this way..." We got in the lift and pressed the button. The doors closed and it was like being in a space rocket crossed with a time machine crossed with a lift. Suddenly the years spun back in time and we were blasted upwards to 1800 (a.k.a. Floor 2).

Exploring the museum was made a lot easier by arrows painted on the floor. Following these we learned all about the time when London had only one bridge across the Thames. The river was busy with steam boats and there were lots of accidents.

We learned about the rise of the railways in London. When first built Euston and King's Cross were on the edge of London and one could walk half and hour in any direction from Westminster or St Paul's and be in the countryside. Ah, those were the days.

To transport people from the train stations to the centre there were horse-drawn cabs and omnibuses. These cabs, buses and trams needed 50,000 horses to run them all and these produced over 1,000 tonnes of dung daily.

Travelling down to Floor 1 we followed the development of the London underground. Trains were built underground to ease congestion on the roads and avoid the demolition needed to build new railways. A big problem with railways underground was how to avoid smoke and steam from the engines. Numerous attempts were made (including trying to power a steam train with hot bricks) but the problem was only completely solved by electrifying the underground railways in the early 1900s.

One of the best pieces on this floor was the wide range of posters that promoted travel on the underground railways to its punters:
We finally made it back to the ground floor which dealt with London transport in 1900-2000. This started with an explanation of the first deep underground tube lines which presented a host of engineering problems. One of these required the invention of the escalator to move people from ground-level deep down to the underground trains.

There was a piece about the unified style of the London underground - from tube station builds to uniforms to lettering...
Best of all was the opportunity to drive a virtual tube train through a computer generated simulation of the Northern line. While we waited this was being monopolised by some punk kid who couldn't even stop correctly at the end of the station platforms. When I eventually had my turn I drove into Tottenham Court Road and pulled to a gentle stop at just the right place... Who knows, maybe I missed my ideal career...

In a big gallery on the ground floor were lots of buses from different times. We climbed in and around these and lamented that loss of the Routemaster bus.

Summary: Surprisingly fun. Well organised layout and interesting information.