Is the London Transport Museum worth it?

[67thave]

Hello all!

I will be spending three months (January to March) studying in London as part of a postgraduate exchange program and will have plenty of time to visit museums and explore London, as well as the remainder of England. However, I am definitely a bit stingy on most things, including museum admission. Looking at the entrance fee for the London Transport Museum, it seems to be a bit steep at £18.50 for the cheapest option, which is essentially double that of my local transport museum in New York City! Additionally, I've heard from friends who have been to the museum that it is a disappointment and targeted primarily towards the younger set.

Is it worth the entry fee, or should I skip it and simply focus my energies elsewhere for rail museums, such as the National Railway Museum in York, which is only slightly more expensive when factoring the cost of a cheap advance fare?

 

[Vespa]

You can buy an annual pass giving you unlimited entry for 12 months.

 

[James H]

Keep an eye out to see if there are any open days at the LT Museum Depot in Acton during your stay in London as that may be more to your taste

 

[Bertone]

Keep an eye out to see if there are any open days at the LT Museum Depot in Acton during your stay in London as that may be more to your taste

I visited the Acton Depot during an open day a couple of months back and that is certainly more of an interest to transport enthusiasts as not only does it have static exhibits across a broad spectrum of the LT infrastructure and assets but renovation work in progress on various LT stock can be seen.
I paid £10 on concession rate.
There is however, a miniature railway adjacent to the access road to interest youngsters.

 

[yorksrob]

20 quid or thereabouts seems to be the standard these days.

If you're interested to start of with it'll be worth it

 

[birchesgreen]

Its worth visiting though the Acton depot is much more.

 

[StephenHunter]

Definitely worth it.

 

[railfan99]

Hello all!

I will be spending three months (January to March) studying in London as part of a postgraduate exchange program and will have plenty of time to visit museums and explore London, as well as the remainder of England. However, I am definitely a bit stingy on most things, including museum admission. Looking at the entrance fee for the London Transport Museum, it seems to be a bit steep at £18.50 for the cheapest option, which is essentially double that of my local transport museum in New York City! Additionally, I've heard from friends who have been to the museum that it is a disappointment and targeted primarily towards the younger set.

Is it worth the entry fee, or should I skip it and simply focus my energies elsewhere for rail museums, such as the National Railway Museum in York, which is only slightly more expensive when factoring the cost of a cheap advance fare?

Why not travel on real trains instead?

Have you thought of purchasing a BritRail (or Eurail) Pass to give either unlimited travel, or 'X' days in 'Y', preferably 1st class?

Then you could visit heritage railways: my favourite is West Somerset Railway at Bishops Lydeard (bus every half an hour from Taunton station). You'd have to check running days as very few once Christmas is over (and perhaps not until April 2023, but it hasn't yet posted days operating).

 

[bramling]

Hello all!

I will be spending three months (January to March) studying in London as part of a postgraduate exchange program and will have plenty of time to visit museums and explore London, as well as the remainder of England. However, I am definitely a bit stingy on most things, including museum admission. Looking at the entrance fee for the London Transport Museum, it seems to be a bit steep at £18.50 for the cheapest option, which is essentially double that of my local transport museum in New York City! Additionally, I've heard from friends who have been to the museum that it is a disappointment and targeted primarily towards the younger set.

Is it worth the entry fee, or should I skip it and simply focus my energies elsewhere for rail museums, such as the National Railway Museum in York, which is only slightly more expensive when factoring the cost of a cheap advance fare?

Personal opinion, however I don’t rate the LT Museum nor for that matter the NRM at York.

As others have said, Acton is better, whilst NRM Shildon has IMO more of interest, and of course there’s the museum at Darlington North Road nearby too.

Covent Garden is just about okay on a weekday during school time if one has some kind of free admission, but I wouldn’t pay to go in.

 

[67thave]

Why not travel on real trains instead?

Have you thought of purchasing a BritRail (or Eurail) Pass to give either unlimited travel, or 'X' days in 'Y', preferably 1st class?

Then you could visit heritage railways: my favourite is West Somerset Railway at Bishops Lydeard (bus every half an hour from Taunton station). You'd have to check running days as very few once Christmas is over (and perhaps not until April 2023, but it hasn't yet posted days operating).

I do plan on travelling quite a bit by train! I'm planning on purchasing a 16-25 railcard as soon as I arrive. I wasn't really considering the Britrail pass, though after looking at it, it seems to be significantly more flexible and functions essentially as an anytime ticket for a price roughly equal to that as what I would pay for a peak round-trip from my part of Long Island to Manhattan! The real sticking point is that it only has 15 days worth of use over the course of two months when I'll be there for three. I guess I'll just have to plan around that (and it should honestly be enough) - thankfully I should be plenty busy between schoolwork and everything on offer in London.

I wasn't particularly considering Eurail as I want to focus on travelling England. I would also indeed love to visit a heritage railway (and have had some on my bucket list, with West Somerset being one), though I didn't mention this in my original post under the assumption that finding an open one would be impossible during the winter.

Personal opinion, however I don’t rate the LT Museum nor for that matter the NRM at York.

As others have said, Acton is better, whilst NRM Shildon has IMO more of interest, and of course there’s the museum at Darlington North Road nearby too.

Covent Garden is just about okay on a weekday during school time if one has some kind of free admission, but I wouldn’t pay to go in.

Thanks for the advice! I was already thinking that I maybe should take advantage of my week off in mid-February to spend a couple of days in the North East. It should be pretty easy to visit the Darlington and Shildon museums into one day with a brief stop in Durham as well. York could be easily visited on the way to or from London.

 

[Tester]

I wasn't particularly considering Eurail as I want to focus on travelling England.

I know it's counterintuitive, but depending on the validity you choose you may find that Eurail is significantly cheaper than Britrail, even if you never use it outside Great Britain. Well worth a bit of research.

 

[bramling]

I do plan on travelling quite a bit by train! I'm planning on purchasing a 16-25 railcard as soon as I arrive. I wasn't really considering the Britrail pass, though after looking at it, it seems to be significantly more flexible and functions essentially as an anytime ticket for a price roughly equal to that as what I would pay for a peak round-trip from my part of Long Island to Manhattan! The real sticking point is that it only has 15 days worth of use over the course of two months when I'll be there for three. I guess I'll just have to plan around that (and it should honestly be enough) - thankfully I should be plenty busy between schoolwork and everything on offer in London.

I wasn't particularly considering Eurail as I want to focus on travelling England. I would also indeed love to visit a heritage railway (and have had some on my bucket list, with West Somerset being one), though I didn't mention this in my original post under the assumption that finding an open one would be impossible during the winter.


Thanks for the advice! I was already thinking that I maybe should take advantage of my week off in mid-February to spend a couple of days in the North East. It should be pretty easy to visit the Darlington and Shildon museums into one day with a brief stop in Durham as well. York could be easily visited on the way to or from London.

If visiting Shildon, do allow a couple of hours to explore some of the Stockton & Darlington relics in and around the town. This is well worth doing IMO.