London Transport Museum have launched an appeal to complete the restoration of its three London Underground Q stock carriages.

The cars were built in the late 1930s and served Londoners valiantly through the Second World War before being withdrawn in the 1960s.

A well-known feature of these trains was the varying features and styles between each individual car in a single unit formation.

Meaning that passengers were never entirely sure what style or formation of carriages their train would be comprised of.

Work on restoring the three cars that have survived into preservation is a long-term project taking place at ‘The Depot’ in Acton, west London, which is also home to the London Transport Museums Archives.

The team working on the Q stock restoration aims to reupholster the seats across all three cars. So far, they have already secured funding to reupholster one car but need to raise £30,000 to reupholster the seats in the remaining two cars.

Each of the three cars will reflect different moments in history and stories from the train’s working career.

One will feature life in London during the war, one will feature life post-war during austerity, and the last car will feature the prosperity of the 1950s and feature a piece on Caribbean workers who came to work at London Transport in the immediate years after Windrush.

As part of the restoration London Transport Museum cultural team has been tirelessly working to try and find and replicate authentic historical moquettes to be used in each of the cars. The archives have over 400 moquette samples from tube stock, trams, buses, trolleybuses and London’s cable car dating from the present day back to 1933.

More information about the project and how to donate can be found on the London Transport Museum’s website under the ‘campaign Q stock’ section.

The long-term aim of the project is to restore the whole three-car set to full working operational condition.