In a former road station in Kjula outside Eskilstuna, the unique road and traffic collections are kept. The collections consist of around a hundred machines and vehicles from throughout the 20th century, together with thousands of objects of various sizes and designs, all of which are connected to road history.
In the road and traffic collections, there are almost 10,000 inventoried objects, among these more than a hundred vehicles and large machines from most of the 20th century, all connected to the history of road maintenance, its working vehicles and machines, as well as the people who worked at the road system. The archive and photo collections are in Arboga.
The objects mainly span the period 1900–1980, with a few exceptions. The collection's oldest and probably heaviest item is part of a Bronze Age road from Malmö that was found during excavations prior to the construction of the new Ring Road around the city. It weighs six tons. Among the smallest and lightest items can be mentioned lead seals for sealing various items. These weigh just over a gram each.
Among the vehicles is one of Sweden's first graders, a Wehr from around 1923 that can still be started and driven. It is also used repeatedly at public events. Here you can also find tools and implements for building and maintaining roads, measuring instruments for road staking and balancing during road construction, as well as road signs and signs, which includes everything from hand-made signs made when needed, to standardized road signs from 1931 onwards.
Once a year, the Machine History Day is usually organized in Kjula. Then road historical vehicles and machines of various kinds are shown and machines such as backhoes, shovels and graders work in the large gravel pit. The day is organized in collaboration with the Machine History Association.
History
The road station in Kjula was built in 1938 and was used as such until 1978. The collections were moved there from Sweden's Road Museum in Borlänge when the museum was closed in 2012. The Swedish Road Administration's museum was inaugurated in 1991 in connection with the then Swedish Road Administration's 150th anniversary. In the years 1985 to 1990, there was a simpler exhibition hall in Malmköping. When the Swedish Road Administration and Banverket ceased to exist in 2010 and the Swedish Transport Administration was formed, the museum followed and became one of the Swedish Road Administration's museums, then under the name Sweden's Road Museum. Until its closure in 2012, Sweden's Road Museum was located in Pylonen, at the Swedish Transport Administration's headquarters in Borlänge.
Since 2018, the road and traffic collections have been part of SMTM.