Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 5 and Version 4 of London Transport Museum

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summary='Museum covering the history and future of transport in London, located in Covent Garden.' summary='Museum covering the history and future of transport in London, located in Covent Garden.' website='http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/'	summary='Museum covering the history and future of transport in London, located in Covent Garden.' website='http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/'

Museum covering the history and future of transport in London, located in Covent Garden. Reopened in November 2007 after two years of refurbishment.

Admission fees as of December 2007 are £8 for adults, £6.50 for seniors, £5 for students, and free for Freedom Pass holders and under-16s. If you plan to make multiple visits it might be worth becoming a Friend of the museum, which as of November 2007 is (according to uk.transport.london) £20/year and gets you free entry to the Transport Museum plus 10% off in the shop and also concessionary rates at the Brunel Museum, the Museum in Docklands, and special exhibitions at the Museum of London.

Kake and friends visited less than a month after reopening, and not all the exhibits were working yet. Some of us found the layout a bit confusing; it wasn't always clear how to move around the museum if we wanted to see the exhibits in chronological order. They had a kind of numbered punch-card system which helped a bit (but not much) to make sure we'd not missed any exhibits. We hadn't bought the guidebook (£5, I think), and perhaps should have.

The trail starts on the top floor, with horse-drawn vehicles and river transport, then continues down to motorised buses, taxis, and trains. Throughout the museum there are large-scale reconstructed or refurbished vehicles, some of which you can go inside. There are also some recordings (by actors) describing life as, for example, a crossing-sweeper, a horse bus driver, or a conductor. Right at the end is some rather marketing-like stuff about the future of transport in London.

The museum includes a library with over 12,000 items; entry to the library is by appointment only, and you will need to bring formal ID with you (e.g. passport), though admission is free. A post on uk.transport.london says there's a "little reading library" somewhere in the main museum too, but we managed to miss it.

Apparently the cafe is rather expensive; one price quoted on uk.transport.london was £2.50 for a cup of coffee. Apparently the cocktails are good, though! There's a theatre downstairs too - the Cubic Theatre.

You can visit the shop (and presumably the cafe) without paying to get in to the museum itself; the interesting part of the shop is the book section, which is upstairs, and worth a look. The posters are upstairs too.

The museum has some other holdings which are not on display at this site; they can be seen at the Museum Depot in Acton during open weekends; these don't seem to happen very often - at the time of writing, the next one is three months away, in March 2008.

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Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 5 and Version 4 of London Transport Museum