Museum of Transport Greater Manchester

Very pleasant way to pass a couple of hours at this interesting museum. They have a good sized collection of exhibits from all decades of the twentieth century. It was cool to see Leyland Atlanteans & Olympians like the ones I caught as a kid including the old ticket machines and even the clipper card machine. You are free to climb aboard some of the exhibits and have a sit down or just look around.
On certain summer weekends they run free rides to either Victoria Station or MOSI on one of the actual vintage buses — check the website for details.
The museum houses a small cafeteria which does basic food: pies, tea & coffee, cakes, crisps. Free refills are available on hot drinks.
Well worth the £4 entry charge, especially considering they have a few ongoing restoration projects.

The Museum of Transport is located in a run-​down, unappealing area of Manchester and is tucked away in a back street well out of view. However, it is worth the effort of getting a 135 bus from the city centre. Get a map or a smartphone because without one it will be hard to know where to get off the bus, and signs are poor. The entrance, when you find it, does no justice to what lies behind, it looks like the back door. However, when you have paid a very modest entry fee, prepare for a surprise, for here lives a very large collection of buses and a few other vehicles. There are dozens of them, and many have been restored. It is a shame that this great collection is not better known and visited by more people. The museum looks as if it is run on a tight budget and has a generally shabby ambiance with some things not working and the exhibits are tightly packed. However, there are more than a few touches of museological excellence dotted around. A working destination blind for visitors to alter was just such a good idea. There are QR codes to listen to the sound of some of the bus engines on your smartphone, another good touch. The recreated bus garage and other offices are first class. The interpretation is simple but mostly done well, albeit on an obviously low budget. Lighting is poor. There is a café where the prices are very low, and a shop selling a limited range of mostly model buses. All in all this is a museum founded on a fine collection, clearly in need of more investment. If only the Heritage Lottery Fund would devote more money to museums like this and less on some of the short-​term things on which they waste money! It is definitely worth visiting, and I hope it develops and prospers.

Thoroughly excellent — you wouldn’t believe a museum of buses could be so interesting for adults or kids.
It was much bigger than expected, my little boy had a game to count how many and he gave up at sixty! The staff are very helpful and knowledgeable, one of them told they’re all volunteers so kudos for them.
I found all the displays on the walls really interesting, I found a photo taken at the end of our road. There were timetables, bus stops and documents too, again it doesn’t sound terribly absorbing but in fact it was fascinating.
You can get on board some of the buses, and one that was chained off interested me so I asked if I could just stand on the platform at the back to see inside better. But instead one of the staff offered to escort me on board and show me all over — he didn’t have to do that, you get the impression that they really care about what they’re doing.
It was quite chilly on the day we went and it wasn’t much warmer inside, after all it is an old bus garage. So wear outside clothes to go. But the tea room was very cosy if a little basic in what it was offering (tea and sandwiches plus hot pies was about the limit) — probably deliberate to make it like a busman’s canteen?
There’s no car park, but it’s on a cul de sac and we just parked on the street outside for free.
I was quite surprised that the kids (7 and 15) were free, my wife and I paid £4 each. We stayed about two hours to do it justice and we’re going back again soon.
Thoroughly recommended, a bit of a hidden gem.

If you’re a bit of a transport geek and love anything to do with British History, then you’d probably quite like the collection of vehicles housed at this museum’s Boyle Street building.
Okay, it’s not quite as vast as its southern counterpart and there are no vintage tube carriages on display but there is a stunning Victorian horse-​drawn bus, classic 40s and 50s coaches, 60s stagecoach double deckers with their original livery and a prototype Metrolink tram.
The bus garage also features the original transport offices with their original décor and furniture, old ticket machines, uniforms and photographs. For £4 entry, it’s a fun and not too expensive way to travel back in time (and for the kids it’s free).

I have been to several different museums of transport and like all the others i love this one. This is located in Boyle street and costs around £4 to get in. They have a large collection of buses and a bus depot. And there are also fire engines and lorries. The people who work there are mostly volunteers and they are really nice. The gift shop is also very good.

Buses, trams, horse drawn carriages, cars — there is a little bit of everything here for public transport nerds with many dating back to the turn of the century or earlier. Its not a massive collection — not like, say the Science and Industry Museum but still a fairly enjoyable day out and good, clean educational fun for fathers and sons in particular.