[sach.sri]

Close your eyes and imagine a place with immaculate and pristine examples of vintage *transportation* modes. Multiple floors of gleaming, well maintained and shining examples from as long back as early 1900s.

I can bet that your imagination will not take you to a small town outside of Gurgaon called Tauru. You will be imagining of some faraway land and dreaming of setting foot in such a place

If i told you that as near as 1 hr drive from GGN you can find such a place and that too maintained in participation of Govt. of India, I am sure no one will believe me. But that is what i found while looking for interesting things to do in and around GGN.


OMG! Fantabulous! Jhakaas are some words that come to my mind when describing the Heritage Transport Museum, a hidden gem that I stumbled across while browsing about interesting things to do in and around GGN.

I am very attracted to offbeat places and as a petrol head finding this was like finding pure Gold dust! or like hitting paydirt or any other exclamation / hyperbole you can think of.

I hope you can sense my excitement and inner child in me

This place is super cool, something that everyone - from a child to a grand dad (and mom) would love.

Enough gushing - coming to the point.

While searching for what one can do in GGN this Gandhi Jayanti weekend, came across a curious link - that of "Heritage Transport Museum". Clicked on it out of curiosity and was astounded to see the kind of vintage car collections that they had.

This is the first and I think one of its kind "museum" in India that has a collection of vintage cars, trains, trams, scooters, motorcycles, boats, palakis, you name it and they had it; and on top it was so very well maintained. For me, it was like being in wonderland or like a kid who is let loose in a toy shop on Christmas.

Some logistics

Location:




Website: pretty detailed and nicely put together. Reeks of "professionalism"

http://www.heritagetransportmuseum.org/index.php

P.S. - no association, just giving information.

Opening hours: 10 am to 7 pm

Ticket: Rs. 400 per adult and 200 per child. They also organise school visits, etc - description on website.

Time Required: I can easily spend half a day there (actually more)

[sach.sri]

We drove down to the museum on 1st Oct evening, it took us 1 hr to reach the place from our house in GGN.

The mistake that we did was leaving too little time - we reached just after 6 pm and had to rush through.

As mentioned, it is in a small town called Tauru near Manesar and as you exit NH 48 and turn into Tauru you are confronted with huge truck traffic as it looks like this is the place where all warehouses are for ppl like Delhivery (actually several huge warehouses for Delhivery), Pepperfry, Ecom Express and what not.

Bustling with activity, but with a small place feel - and the weather turning cooler and more wintry in the evenings gave us just the right amount of "romantisism"


There is ample parking space. As you park and head out, you immediately start seeing the exhibition, it starts with this - awesomely maintained tractor



Moving ahead - you see the building facade with a artwork made of traffic signals




This tram with nice ads and inside it had a screen with some informacials being played
*


Gang posing happily infront of the traffic island



the evergreeen DDLJ pose. ja jee ly apni jindagi




Enter the building and first thing you notice is the F1 car on the wall


Ticket counter


Vignaharta! (both of them)


Ministry of culture


Sponsors

[sach.sri]

The museum is well laid out, with individual sections for different types of vehicles.

You enter on Floor 1 and it has cafeteria, souvenir shop, railway exhibition, and ancient modes of transport - carriages, palanquins, etc


You head down to Floor 0 - this is where the magic is with all vintage cars and stuff



Floor 2 has the aviation, two wheelers, etc


Did not goto Floor 3



Level 1

Showing the history of wheels, nicely done


Liked this arrangement of carriage lamps a lot


wierdly decorated car





Jodhpur Saloon



Interiors, the way royalty travelled














"houdas" that would go on top of elephants


Various carriages and palakis










Palanquin Finials: These are decorative pieces that would go on the end of palanquins.

[sach.sri]

Level 0 - In my opinion, they have really outdone themselves here awesome collections of cars and the way they have been exhibited simply too good, as they say "chumma performance"

Start with old buses, trucks, people movers and some posters

Me, loving it




Quirky couplets from a truck window


Fargo passenger bus, this was the only one that was not restored - but it did had a nice charm even like this






Driver and parking tokens ?, from where? does someone know, very nicely and painstakingly collected and mounted




Awesome painting, i guess showing how the goras travelled Vs how the desis travelled.
Aside rant - really gets my goat, when i look at such things :(. Not the painting - that is very nice - but what it is showing


Old posters - just imagine how much effort it would have taken to collect those

[sach.sri]

Now come the cars, starting with a market, or what they call a "Period Street Scene





Different generations of our dear old Amby







They had a section dedicated to fuel, with a old filling station. Showcasing the inner child in me


Look at the inscription on the mirror, and not the handsome chap






Posters of bygone era - Railways enticing people to visit different places

[sach.sri]

Classics! Classics! Classics! Galore!!

So many beauties, need to pick my jaw from the floor. Dont know where to look and what to click. Sensory overload



To state the obvious - Rolls Royce






Drooling










One of my favorite designs - looks like a bullet. Even standing it is looking so dynamic








Loved the fins on this one, Aggression! Yo baby














Dont go anywhere, awesomeness will continue

[sach.sri]

No commentary in this post....just look at the pics and salivate



















Coming up in the next post - boats, planes and what nots

[sach.sri]

Very nice wall art made from bicycles and next one is from bicycle parts





This boat was hanging, and was riding the waves . Awesome work









Contessa with 1 ruppee coins pasted on the entire body. Around 20K in total



Modern art - India from a trucker's eye


Some highly decorated specimens

[sach.sri]

Toys and 2 wheelers
They even had a section for toys







Two wheelers





Bedazzled Royal Enfield













Tron bike anyone?





Chhakda - my saurashtri friend will know this intimately. My dad was posted near Veraval and this was the primary means of public transport. Brings back lot of memories







Even the washroom had side view mirrors in keeping with the theme




Phatphat - a variation of chhakda, was used in old delhi in place of autos in earlier times when we were kids

[sach.sri]

Ornate wooden Rath from Gujarat 1860







Inside the trams that were at the entrance, very period and very nice







Tickets from that era


the kid in me again








out of the way


hff hff, caught the tram



Bye Bye Museum, till next time. Need to spend more quality time together


Completed the trip, but not the TL. There was also a very nice exhibition of photos in the museum. Will upload them as well.

To wrap up - we spent 45 mins there which was in no way enough, rushed through the exhibitions and have to go back.
This is perfect weather i think, to go on a weekend in the morning, spend some time inside then come out and sit in the garden, go back again spend some more time.

amazing stuff this one, so lucky that I got the link.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Jeroen]

The Heritage Museum is the best curated museum in India I think. Nice to see it is still expanding its collection.

Thanks for sharing these many ( and I mean MANY) photographs

Originally Posted by sach.sri

To wrap up - we spent 45 mins there which was in no way enough, rushed through the exhibitions and had to go back.
T

Not sure how you managed to take all these photographs in 45 minutes. About 3-4 photographs per minute? I would not be able to enjoy anything if I were only taking photographs.

As the saying goes, less is more.

Jeroen

[libranof1987]

Thanks for sharing, sach.sri!

The museum is indeed done up very well; you can sense that a lot of effort, thought and genuine interest has gone into the making. We'd visited this place several years ago, good to see more exhibits being added. [During our visit, many sections were still being set up]

Originally Posted by sach.sri

If i told you that as near as 1 hr drive from GGN you can find such a place

What if I tell you there's another place just as spectacular, also about an hour from Gurgaon.

You must visit NeverEnuf, a miniature world focussing on railways / transport. It has been created incredible well, and to an immense level of detail and accuracy. Do call in advance, and plan to spend at least 3-4 hours.

https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attractio...t_Haryana.html

[fastestindian]

Oh this looks amazing. Thanks for sharing. I did bump into it online, a few weeks ago while also looking to go spend a day somewhere but was skeptical it would be this good.
Have to say, between Museo Camera and this one, Gurgaon seems to be up and coming as a nice cosmo museum city ✌️

[sach.sri]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The Heritage Museum is the best curated museum in India I think. Nice to see it is still expanding its collection.

Thanks for sharing these many ( and I mean MANY) photographs



Not sure how you managed to take all these photographs in 45 minutes. About 3-4 photographs per minute? I would not be able to enjoy anything if I were only taking photographs.

As the saying goes, less is more.

Jeroen

Heh heh, I know but couldnt resist showing these pics and somehow we did not really rush through and managed to find time to even goof around while taking these MANY pics.

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Thanks for sharing, sach.sri!

The museum is indeed done up very well; you can sense that a lot of effort, thought and genuine interest has gone into the making. We'd visited this place several years ago, good to see more exhibits being added. [During our visit, many sections were still being set up]



What if I tell you there's another place just as spectacular, also about an hour from Gurgaon.

You must visit NeverEnuf, a miniature world focussing on railways / transport. It has been created incredible well, and to an immense level of detail and accuracy. Do call in advance, and plan to spend at least 3-4 hours.

https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attractio...t_Haryana.html

Well, here i was - thinking that i am discovering some hidden jewels :(
Jokes apart - have been there. Went there in summers actually and we did spend half a day there (just couldnt do the TL, planning to put that up next). Again something you dont think you will find in Gurgaon.