ミケRail visiting the Railway Museum in Omiya

In June 2019 I visited Japan for 2 weeks, this is an expert from my personal blog I kept during the trip about when I visited the Railway Museum in Saitama!

Day 3 - Saitama, Railway Museum

I started the day with breakfast at the hotel (I actually got up in time for it!). It was quite nice an odd mix of what I would expect at my own hotel and also some Japanese style breakfasts. Not sure if I’ll have it again but I’m glad I gave it a go.

Today was due to be quite hot, around 31 degrees, so I made the executive decision to go hide in an air-conditioned museum for the day, and what a day it was! After breakfast, with my train ita-bag I made my way to the station to head out of Tokyo to the neighbouring prefecture of Saitama. Thats right, it was time to visit the Railway Museum in Omiya!!

I had such a fantastic day visiting the Railway Museum, it took about 40mins to get there and honestly I kinda want to go back. Omiya is the station I got the Shinkansen for my adventure to Toyama last year, so just being at the station meant I got to see lots of different trains. I got to ride the New Shuttle too (Thats literally its name) from Omiya to the railway museum station.

The museum was amazing, it started with buying a ticket that looked and felt like a suica card, you even had to tap it on the barrier to get in (I was very sad when we had to hand them back later ;-; ) they really kept to the train/station theme the whole time.

The first part of the museum is kind of the greatest part, the rolling stock station! It had, in order of when they were first in use, trains from the very beginning until now. You were able to go on (and sometimes under) a lot of the passenger carriages too so you can have a sit. Each train had information about it, it was all in Japanese however, I was able to download the app which gave me English translation for everything and was really easy to follow.

I really liked seeing the trains from all the different years, the very first one Japan got was actually from us! Made in Lancashire! There was a sleeper train with triple bunks and a passenger carriage with a little wood stove in it to keep them warm. We unfortunately weren’t allowed to go on the newest Shinkansen that was displaying the Gran Class, we could only peep through the window. They also didn’t have the E7 which is the one my dress for my live next month is based on, so that was kinda sad. There were also a couple of trains outside, 2 of which we were allowed to eat lunch, so I of course did.

After the rolling stock station it was time for the Job Station. I loved this section, it highlighted all the people who work together to make the trains run, not just the drivers but the conductors, the cleaners, the engineers, the people that look after the tracks, who sell tickets etc.etc. It was also here that you could buy tickets to play the simulations however everything seemed to already be sold out, its a shame but also an excuse to go back!

Future station was up next, a little exhibition about what they think the future of railways will entail. This was interesting but quite a small section more focused on something that looked like Nintendo Mii’s which I didn’t really look into.

History station was the next stop. This, as the name suggests, took a look at the history of railways in Japan. This was super in-depth and had ticket booths and other memorabilia from each time period. I really enjoyed this section and spent a lot of time slowly going around it looking at how its evolved since the UK sent Japan their first train in 1872.

After a quick break outside on the viewing platform I moved onto the other half of the museum, there were a few little exhibitions, I particularly enjoyed the one to do with trains in pop culture. However we weren’t allowed to take photos in that section so I couldn't get a photo of all the songs about trains! I realised afterwards that next door to this one was the largest model railway in Japan that I missed out on, so yet another reason to go back! I had been too distracted by the beautiful stain glass window they had showing lots of aspects of trains.

The next station was the Science station, as it was above the kids cafe and area it was full of children all playing the games to learn the science of trains so I didn’t really get a proper look. I didn’t mind too much it was nice seeing so many children be excited by trains.

Finally I made my way to the gift shop. There were some other paid activities but again I left them until next time as I was starting to get a bit tired. The gift shop took a while to look around. I wanted to look at everything of course but it was very busy. My favourite item I got was a proper stamp book which I immediately used to put the stamp of the museum in!

After reluctantly giving my ticket back I made my way back to the New Shuttle. I was very excited to hear one of the songs I plan on singing next month was actually the jingle to announce the New Shuttle was arriving!!

I had a little look around Omiya but after being bothered by some women trying to convert me to buddism (i think??) I decided to just head back. I’d had such a great day I didn’t want to hang around for them to ruin it for me.

I ended the day by having dinner with Gary as it was his last night.

Railway Museum Website | Railway Museum Map

I took so many photos that day, I've complied just some of them below!