The Museum Exhibit That Serves as a Memorial

Inside the London Transport Museum is an unusual, if not unique, memorial.

The waxwork of the bus driver in the museum's  Routemaster bus is based on a real person, Christopher Moyes.

 Chris Moyes was a former bus conductor who became a key player during the privatisation of the bus and rail industries in the 1980's and 1990's. He was the founder of one of the largest transport companies in the country, Go Ahead, who still run trains and buses all over UK.

“He averaged 1,000 miles a week on public transport – preferably his own buses and trains – and even took his enthusiasm home with him, owning, maintaining and driving a collection of vintage buses. Though criticised for phasing out the Routemasters among the 1,000 London buses operated by Go Ahead, he bought one himself "just for the fun and enjoyment of it" but thought it too uncomfortable for the modern passenger."

Chris Moyes died of a brain tumour aged just 57 in 2006.

When the London Transport Museum reopened, after a lengthy refit, in 2007 they decided to commemorate him with this waxwork and portrayed him as the driver of their Routemaster.


Other waxwork figures in the museum are also based on real people connected with London's transport. The museum's current Director, Sam Mullins, sits as a passenger inside a "padded cell" carriage from the 1890 the City and South London Railway, for example.

But I can't think of anyone else who has deliberately and posthumously been commemorated by a waxwork in quite this way.

Quotes come from the Daily Telegraph obituary of Chis Moyes, the full obit. is here.