Tag Archives: london underground

London Transport Depot Open Weekend 15th & 16th March

If you’ve never been before it really is worth it.

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The Museum Depot at Acton houses the majority of the Museum’s collections which are not on display in the main Museum in Covent Garden. With 400,000 items, including many original works of art used for the Museum’s celebrated poster collection, vehicles, signs, models, photographs, engineering drawings and uniforms, it’s a wonderful treasure trove that together form one of the most comprehensive and important records of urban transport anywhere in the world.

Depot Bus copy

Acton Open Weekends

Dates: 15-16 March
Time: 11.00 – 17.00

They’re opening up the Museum Depot at Acton on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 March 2014, this time in celebration of buses. Big ones, small ones, and even teeny weeny ones.
The bus bonanza is part of National Science and Engineering week and features static bus displays, bus pit tours, a bouncy bus, curator led small object store tours, a (small) bus rally, and bus themed films and talks. We will also be displaying a number of layouts from various exhibitors, with a special emphasis on buses. Look out for the LEGO and BAYKO bus displays and join the make and takes and storytelling for families.

Tickets
Prices: £10, £8
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Cart Marking Ceremony

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Date: Wednesday 17 July
Time: 15.45
Location: Platform 2, Mansion House Station

The centuries-old City of London tradition of ‘cart marking’, usually reserved for road vehicles, will go underground on Wednesday 17 July when London Transport Museum’s 1892 Metropolitan railway carriage No. 353 will be ‘marked’ by Alderman Fiona Woolf CBE and the Master Carman, Neil Coles, watched by Sir Peter Hendy CBE, London’s Transport Commissioner, and Mike Brown MVO, Managing Director of London Underground and Rail.

Organised by the Worshipful Company of Carmen, a livery company of the City of London, the ceremony usually involves marking a vehicle with a branding iron and takes place in the forecourt of the Guildhall.

The tradition dates back over 500 years when all carts and carriages plying trade within the ‘Square Mile’ had to be licensed to operate within the City limits. The licence took the form of a branded mark applied directly to the vehicle.

This year, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground, the role of the City of London in the financing and building of the Metropolitan Railway, and the important role that underground travel plays in the life of the City, the ceremony will, for the first time, take the unusual step of including a rail vehicle. As the vehicle can not get inside the Guildhall forecourt, Alderman Fiona Woolf CBE and the Master Carman, Neil Coles, will take a branded plaque to the carriage at Mansion House Station.

London’s Transport Commissioner Sir Peter Hendy CBE and a member of the Worshipful Company of Carmen, said: “The City of London played a crucial role in lobbying for and funding London’s first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, and has been consistent ever since in supporting better transport in order to develop the capital’s economy.

“The extension of this ancient ceremony with the London Transport Museum’s finely restored Victorian carriage of the Metropolitan Railway in the 150th anniversary year of London Underground highlights this connection.”

The ceremony will take place at 15.45 at Mansion House station on Platform 2, where the carriage will stand between approximately 11.00 and 16.00, giving the public a chance to admire the quality of the recent restoration, which was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Further information about the history of the Cart Marking tradition and the Worshipful Company of Carmen is at www.thecarmen.co.uk