London Transport Depot Open House

As promised, here are most of the photos that I took while attending the London Transport Museum's Open House weekend at their depot in Acton, London. It's where they store all their old crap that won't fit in the museum. And it's hella cool.

Here's an average-sized man driving a miniature steam-powered engine. There's a little metal bucket behind the engine and yes, it's filled with coal and yes, the man shovelled itty-bitty shovel-fulls of coal into the mini-engine to chug chug chug along.

Here's just the beginning of the stuff. Most of it doesn't need (or have) an explanation, but these might. They are the large metal bits of the tunnels that they use to reinforce the dirt around the tube tunnels. Not as large as you think - the trains are round for a reason...

There are some strange collections, too, like this collection of waste-baskets.

Racks and racks and racks of collections.

Fire buckets!

I saw this sign on the side of a big bucket full of what appears to be junk. I'm not sure if it says @bay or Ebay, but if it says Ebay, I'm interested to know if they auction off old stuff that they no longer want/need. Interesting.

And their not just about little things, like signs, tunnels and engines, it's about full-sized trains, too!

And signs! So many signs. Like my future house...

This is the inside of one of the oldest trains, which unfortunately was attacked and nearly destroyed by vandals. They've kept the remains, and are raising money to restore it.

Trains and trains and trains!

Then we got a tour of the poster room, which was cool. The London Underground have a copy of all the posters that have ever appeared on the underground - at least, all the adverts made by the underground. I particularly like this poster. It was made in 1926 and if you can't see it, the top reads "London 2026 A.D. - This is all in the air" and the bottom "To-day - the solid comfort of the underground". While it's pretty impressive that many of the high-rise buildings pictured in this painting look remarkably similar to today's London, it's unfortunate that we're not travelling by air. Shame. Oh well, we're still got a decade or so to figure it out.

I really enjoy the details on the painting. On the top, a sign on a building reads "Gravity Gas". LOVE IT. Gravity gas. Bahahaha.

On the bottom on, a sign for the underground to Scotland - not yet a reality, and can you imagine, how boring a ride would that be! Hours of the underground. Heh.

That's all folks. I really enjoyed this place and wish it was open more than twice a year. Hopefully i'll still be around in March 2010 when they open it again.