Why did the current Museum of Transport have to shut a year before the Riverside Museum is open?
The closure of the museum was triggered by the need to move the large railed vehicles. These have started to be moved with the removal due for completion around August 2010. They have to be installed in the Riverside Museum at an early stage to allow access platforms, lifts and other display structures to be built around them. Smaller vehicles and museum collections will be installed last. The subway carriages are the first items to be moved and installed in the new museum and to do this requires demolition of part of the existing re-created street at the Museum of Transport. Moving the other railed vehicles will require other collections to be moved, greatly reducing public access space and also permanently damaging the exhibition floor. Unlike the floor of the Riverside Museum, the Museum of Transport’s floor was not designed to accommodate the movement of locomotives, trains and subway carriages without damage. The fit-out period for the Riverside Museum is 11 months. The fit-out of
