The museum opened in 2002 in Bristol's historic old railway station, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, following renovation and conversion costing £8 million.

[5][6] Unlike many national museums in Britain, the BECM was not publicly funded, but owned and operated by a charitable trust; consequently an admission charge was in place.

The Old Station which had previously housed the museum was also given to the city, and may be used for future Network Rail services to London.

[13][14] The unauthorised sale of hundreds of items from the museum's collection was the subject of a BBC One Inside Out programme on 10 December 2012.

[22] Since 2014 Bristol Archives have worked to catalogue some of the photographic and film collections, digitise them and make them available for public use.