About
Transport Museum Wythall preserves one of the most significant collections of historic buses in Britain, over ninety vehicles housed across a series of purpose-built halls on the site of the former RAF Wythall airfield on the southern fringe of Birmingham, in Worcestershire. The museum's roots trace back to 1973, when the Birmingham Omnibus Preservation Society was formed by enthusiasts determined to save examples of the corporation buses that had served Birmingham and the wider West Midlands for decades, work that led in 1977 to the formation of the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Trust, a registered charity that has run the museum ever since.
The Trust acquired its present site, part of the former RAF Wythall base on Chapel Lane, in February 1978, and has steadily expanded its exhibition halls over the following decades, with buildings opening in 1980, 1990, 2007 and 2012 as the collection grew and the Trust pursued its determination to have every vehicle under cover, protected from weather rather than displayed in an open yard as many transport collections of this era were.
The resulting halls now trace the history of bus and coach manufacture and operation across the West Midlands and beyond, following the fleets of Birmingham City Transport and its constituent and successor operators through the decades of manufacturing change, livery evolution and route development that shaped how generations of Midlanders travelled to work, school and leisure.
Volunteers restore and maintain the vehicles to running condition wherever practicable, and the museum hosts a busy calendar of event days throughout its February-to-November season, including running days when visitors can ride in operating vintage buses around the site and surrounding lanes, giving Transport Museum Wythall a genuinely hands-on, working-museum character distinct from static display-only collections.
For anyone interested in the social and industrial history of public transport, bus and coach engineering, or simply the nostalgic pleasure of seeing - and sometimes riding in - vehicles that once carried the everyday life of a great industrial region, Wythall offers one of the country's most comprehensive dedicated bus preservation sites.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Wednesday during school holidays
Busiest: Event and running days
💡 Check the event calendar for running days when vintage buses operate around the site.
💡 Visitor Tips
- Check the event calendar before visiting - running days when buses operate around the site are a particular highlight worth timing your visit around.
- The museum is open Saturdays, Sundays year-round through the season, plus Wednesdays during school holidays - not a daily-opening site.
- Season runs mid-February to early November; closed over winter.
- Free on-site parking makes this an easy site to reach by car from Birmingham and the wider West Midlands.
- Allow at least two hours to see the full collection across all the exhibition halls properly.
- Volunteers are often working on restoration projects during open days - a good opportunity to ask questions about the vehicles.
- The tea room is volunteer-run and open on museum open days for refreshments.
Highlights
Over 90 Preserved Buses
The museum's core collection of more than ninety preserved buses and coaches, one of the largest dedicated bus preservation collections in Britain, traces the history of public transport vehicle design and manufacture across the West Midlands and beyond, spanning open-top double deckers through to more recent single-deck designs.
Housed entirely under cover across the Trust's purpose-built halls, the collection reflects a deliberate policy of protecting every vehicle from weather damage, distinguishing Wythall from open-air transport collections where exposure gradually degrades preserved vehicles.
Birmingham City Transport Fleet History
A significant portion of the collection documents the fleets of Birmingham City Transport and its constituent and successor operators, tracing how the corporation's buses evolved in design, livery and technology across the decades during which they carried the everyday working population of one of Britain's largest industrial cities to jobs, schools and leisure destinations, making the collection a form of social history as much as vehicle engineering history.
The Former RAF Wythall Site
The museum occupies part of the former RAF Wythall airfield, acquired by the Trust in February 1978, giving the site its own layer of military aviation history beneath its current transport preservation use, and the scale of the former airfield site has allowed the Trust to expand its exhibition halls progressively over four decades as the collection grew, opening new buildings in 1980, 1990, 2007 and 2012.
Running Days and Vintage Bus Rides
On selected event days throughout the February-to-November season, the museum runs a number of its vintage buses in operation, giving visitors the opportunity to actually ride in historic vehicles around the site and surrounding lanes rather than only viewing them as static exhibits, an experience that connects the collection's engineering heritage directly to living memory of how these vehicles felt and sounded in service.
Collections
Transport Museum Wythall's collection comprises over ninety preserved buses and coaches, predominantly representing Birmingham City Transport and its constituent and successor West Midlands operators, spanning several decades of bus design, manufacture and livery evolution, all housed under cover across exhibition halls built progressively since 1980 on the site of the former RAF Wythall airfield.
Volunteer restoration work maintains a significant proportion of the collection in running condition, supporting a programme of event and running days that sets the museum apart from static-display-only transport collections, and the Trust's own institutional history since its 1973 founding forms an additional layer of the site's heritage interpretation.
Birmingham's Buses: A Fleet History
The evolution of Birmingham City Transport and successor operator fleets, told through preserved vehicles spanning several decades.
📍 Exhibition halls
From RAF Airfield to Transport Museum
The history of the former RAF Wythall site and the Trust's four-decade development of its exhibition halls.
📍 Site grounds
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.