London Transport Museum

Researching our collections

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Library at 55 Broadway 1952

There are many ways to use the collections at London Transport Museum to find out more about London's public transport, past present and future.

Research at the Museum

If you are visiting the Museum, make sure you drop into the Learning Lounge on Level 1.  To dig deeper, visit our Library where you can access thousands of books, maps, ephemera and magazines. To contact us, find out our opening hours, or make an appointment - see Visit the Library.

Our reserve collection of vehicles, signs, posters, photographs, ephemera, plans, drawings and small objects are held at the Museum Depot in Acton. Some collections are accessible for research but not all. If you are interested in specific material please email us with your request giving as much information as you can, and include a contact number if possible.  If access is possible, an appointment can be made for you to visit and look at material with a Curator.

Research online

The Museum is continually adding to the ways in which you can access our collections and research. You can explore the results online in Our collections, Information resources and the Exploring twentieth-century London website.

Borough books

Find out how public transport became part of people's lives in different parts of London.

In partnership with libraries and archives around London we have begun a project aimed at uncovering the transport story in every one of London's thirty-three boroughs. Using images and sources from local collections and those at the Museum, four booklets have been produced so far. You can see the booklets in the Museum's Learning Lounge and Library, or download them here:

Barnet
Ealing
Greenwich
Kingston

If you have an interesting local transport story or memory you would like to share, why not email us heading your story 'Borough books'.

Generations: celebrating 50 years of Caribbean recruitment

The Generations book was produced in partnership with Transport for London in 2006 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of London Transport's recruitment of staff from the Caribbean.

Download the book and learn about the experiences of staff who migrated here to work on the buses and Underground. Their story is told in their own words and illustrated with images from the Museum's collection.

Generations: celebrating 50 years of Caribbean recruitment

If you have worked on transport in London and have an interesting story or memory you would like to share, why not email us.

If you have any problems downloading these files please contact us.  If you would like to research these subjects in more depth or find information about any other transport-related topic, you might like to visit our Library.