The Museum of Railway Transport was founded in 1813 under the support of the Saint-Petersburg Institute of engineers of communications as the educational base for the students and afterwards for all engineers of communications. The museum is situated in the building which was constructed especially for it. In 1902 a building constructed by architect Peter Kupinsky and later on enlarged by Evgeny Baumgarten in 1910-1911 became home for the Museum of the Department of Communications named after Nicholas, and afterwards the museum of the Institute and the museum of the Department of Communications were combined under one roof.

Nowadays the collection of the museum reflects the history of all components of railway transport, locomotives and carriages, communications, automation and control equipment; building and road (travel) machines; bridges and other artificial constructions. The main exposition of the museum, along with the original objects of engineering, contains the unique models of steam locomotives, carriages and bridges. Some of them were displayed at the international exhibitions in the 19^th - early 20^th centuries, in particular, in 1900 in Paris.