The Railway Museum

The Railway Museum, located along the overhead Tohoku/Joetsu Shinkansen line in Saitama City’s Omiya ward (adjacent to a JR East factory that manufactures train cars) is one of the largest of its kind in Japan. After inheriting the exhibitions from the 2006 closure of the Transport Museum in Tokyo’s Kanda, the museum opened in 2007 with the ambition of providing a new space for both learning and entertainment. Their logo, which brings to mind the image of a wheel assembly of a steam locomotive, incorporates three circles that symbolize ‘Railways’, ‘History’ and ‘Learning’. The museum exhibits as many as 36 real-life train cars that were once in service, and spans over 140 years of railway history – starting with trains dating back as far as the early years of the Meiji era. On its first floor, the museum also offers the chance to experience various train simulators and even has a particularly entertaining miniature train that runs in an open area outside the museum for visitors to try their hand at operating. Also exhibited here, on the museum’s second floor, is a fantastic railway diorama that incorporates over 1400m of track. Amongst the museum’s various facilities, there’s also a restaurant run by the long-standing dining car operators Nippon Shokudo, who offer an old time favourite amongst Japanese train conductors, called ‘Hachikuma Rice’ (¥650). Established as the centrepiece of the JR East 20th Anniversary Memorial Project, in addition to cash, the museum itself and many of its facilities, such as its restaurants and gift shops, also accept electronic payments made with both Suica and Pasmo cards.