The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail transport, but today it also features exhibits of various sorts of industrial technology.

The present-day museum is located on the former freight yard attached to the Anhalter Bahnhof in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, including two historic roundhouses and several office buildings.

An extensive railway collection opened in 1987/88 in the rebuilt 19th century roundhouses of the Anhalter Bahnhof locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk) that had lain derelict for about 30 years.

The museum addresses the flight enthusiasm of the early 20th century and its abuse in the German re-armament building up the Luftwaffe, documented by an Arado Ar 96, a wrecked Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber and the current restoration of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor as well as by one of three preserved Messerschmitt Bf 110, a Flak cannon, and a V-1 flying bomb built by Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp inmates at the Mittelwerk site.

Post-war aircraft including a VFW-Fokker 614 and the Cessna 172P that Mathias Rust flew to the Moscow Red Square during the Cold War have also been added to the exhibition.