The Railway Museum

My internship has already finished, so today I got the day off. Having already went to most places in Tokyo, I've decided to head to the Railway Museum in Saitama. The cheapest way to get there from Tsukuba is to take the Tsukuba Express to Nagareyama-Otakanomori station and take the Tobu Noda Line to Kita Omiya and walk a bit to the museum.

Did you remember that I said that most public places close on Monday? I've completed forgotten about that until I arrived there. Luckily, this place closes on Tuesday instead of Monday or my trip would've been a waste.

Before I've entered the museum, I've decided to have lunch first. I walked around and looked for a restaurant before ending up in a ramen shop. The menu I ordered was "ゼロ系" which I thought was a strange name for a ramen. Later, I've found out that it's a reference to the 0 Series Shinkansen.

Now, time to enter the museum! The ticket is ¥1000 and you can either choose to get a physical ticket (an IC card you'll have to return when getting out) or add it to your Suica card. Since I don't have a Suica card and my Rabbit card didn't work, I opted for the physical ticket.

Entrance ticket

Train station-style entrance gate

After I got into the museum, I've found out that the choice to have lunch first was a huge mistake! Being a train museum, they have old-style "ekiben" or train station lunch boxes on sale which you can take and eat it on the trains prepared.

Poster for "ekiben"

One of the trains designated for eating

Inside the museum, the main area consists of many trains from many different eras from steam train, diesel train and finally electrified trains.

A bird-eye view of the gallery

You can also view the inside of some trains

Most displays are in Japanese, but some videos and descriptions are also available in English.

A few of the posters have English QR Code

But they are usually less detailed than the Japanese counter part

On the upper floor, there are history of train in Japan, collection room for train-related artifacts, and a "learning" area for kids.

History of the Japanese Railway

The format of train ticket almost haven't changed in the past few decades

Japan has been using vending machines for a very long time!

Some kind of show of "one-day" at a train station

The collection room

The learning zone

Next comes the most interesting part of this museum, the driving simulator, which allows you to try driving a few of the lines available (different lines have different features and assistive capabilities). The images used aren't generated but are actually footages taken from a real train. The system assists you by recommending the speed, but you're on your own for actually maintaining those speed. By the way, stopping at the station is very hard!

Let's try the Yamanote Line!

Instruction... but I have no idea

Someone else driving the simulator. He looks like he's good at this.

And that's it for my tour! There's actually another section which allows kids to drive mini-trains on a track outside, but unfortunately, I'm no longer a kid.