London Transport Museum Depot Open Day

There is an extension to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden in central London. It’s the London Transport Museum Depot in Acton Town London. The museum depot only opens for a few days at a time about three times a year. It hosts the most comprehensive collections of urban transport anywhere in the world. There are trains, buses, signage, posters, signalling, ticket machines, uniforms etc. In principle the same sort of items you would find in the venue in Covent Garden. However, this is part of a working depot (Ealing Common Depot) which has a distinct section allocated to a collection London Transport heritage. The collection of train rolling stock, tram, trolley buses and buses is much larger at the depot. The bus section is well laid out with the vehicles spread out along a circumference of an open area of the shed. However, the railway stock can be positioned poorly to properly observe and photograph. They are also quite grubby. In addition to just ‘looking’ at vehicles there are a few demonstration areas (such as the Victoria Line cab and the power door presentation on the mechanics of opening and closing the sliding doors) with volunteers, many old London transport employees, on hand to explain the history and their experiences working in this environment and this equipment. There are miniature train rides (see 1m 16s) outside of the main depot building which is fun for the kids. And at the other end of the depot is an area with a Route Master double decker bus (see 1m 49s). It feels that there was less head room in them than the current buses. Close by there are various pop-up stalls and vehicles selling refreshments etc. They must rotate the displays. I saw a promotional picture for the open day with one of the Jubilee test trains from the mid 1980s. On the day it was not to seen. However, it’s great to see, and step on board and sit down, on a red 1938 tube stock carriage (see 2m 38s). A popular exhibit is the yellow battery locomotive (see 1m 44s) – a rare sight in the operational world unless you travel on the tube very late at night or first thing in the morning. I particularly liked the vintage buses (see 0m 28s, 2m 11s and 3m 18s). The aesthetic design with the curves and line and liveries are fascinating. The backing track, is an original composition, called ‘Commuting’. The video was shot with a Canon R6 Mark ii, an Insta360 Ace Pro and a Pixel 10 Pro on Sunday 12 April 2026.