{"id":4576,"date":"2021-05-26T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T01:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/visit-the-jr-east-railway-museum\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T11:34:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T02:34:06","slug":"visit-the-jr-east-railway-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/visit-the-jr-east-railway-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"The JR East Railway Museum: See Japan’s History Move on Wheels of Steel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good many visitors to Japan have been known to utter out loud, \u201cthere sure are a lot of trains in Japan!\u201d \u2026And they wouldn\u2019t be wrong! We happen to have the\u00a0world\u2019s highest per capita train ridership<\/a>\u00a0and are home to\u00a0The world\u2019s busiest station<\/a> as well. It is not an overstatement to say that rails built modern-day Japan, and finding out just how true this is and how that came to be is pretty interesting, not to mention it makes for a good outing by yourself or with the family.<\/p>\n

So what can we find inside?<\/h3>\n

According to the Wikipedia page,\u00a0The Railway Museum<\/a> (\u9244\u9053\u535a\u7269\u9928 Tetsud\u014d Hakubutsukan) opened October 14th, 2007. It was built and operated by the East Japan Railway Culture Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the\u00a0East Japan Railway Company (JR East)<\/a>, as a successor to the original museum that used to be located just east Ochanomizu station under the JR tracks near Akihabara.<\/p>\n

Inside you\u2019ll find restored and saved 30 railway cars covering everything from steam engines all the way up to and including the Shinkansen \u201cBullet Train.\u201d Not to be missed are the train cab simulators which are every bit what you\u2019d face if you were to pilot a JR train, down to the last switch and dial. There are an extensive array of railway dioramas so finely detailed you\u2019ll wind up looking for your particular station to see if they\u2019ve captured it right. This is a proper museum outside of the interactive bits, so there\u2019s also some brain food for those who want to know all about Japan Rail from its inception in the late 1800s through artifacts and books, video booths, and a research room. Rounding out the amenities, there\u2019s a multi-purpose hall, a gallery balcony overlooking the Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen lines, a cafeteria and children\u2019s play area, and of course, the museum shop,<\/p>\n

Getting There\u3012330-0852<\/h3>\n

Access:<\/strong>\u00a0The Railway Museum is located next to\u00a0Tetsudo Hakubutsukan Station<\/a>\u00a0on the New Shuttle Line, one stop north of Omiya station.<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong>\u00a0THE RAILWAY MUSEUM<\/a><\/p>\n

Hours:<\/strong> Every day except Tuesdays, 10 am-5:30 pm; Closed December 29~January 1 for New Year\u2019s holidays.<\/p>\n

[spacer height=”5px”]<\/p>\n

—By\u00a0Jason L Gatewood<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0Saitama Railway Park Zone<\/a>\u00a0By Lover of Romance – Own work,\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><\/p>\n

Image:\u00a02012-06-02_JRRailwayMuseum002<\/a>” (CC BY-NC 2.0<\/a>) by\u00a0theKNB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good many visitors to Japan have been known to utter out loud, \u201cthere sure are a lot of trains in Japan!\u201d \u2026And they wouldn\u2019t be wrong! We happen to have the\u00a0world\u2019s highest per capita train ridership\u00a0and are home to\u00a0The world\u2019s busiest station as well. It is not an overstatement to say that rails built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,37],"tags":[447,310,176,45,138],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-friendly","category-tokyo-2","tag-saitama-city","tag-saitama-prefecture","tag-tokyo-day-trips","tag-tokyo-metropolis-2","tag-trains"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50166,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions\/50166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}