Handpicked experience · Kyoto
Kyoto, Japan
Entry to the Kyoto Railway Museum in Umekoji Park: fifty-three railway vehicles from steam through to the Shinkansen, a working roundhouse, and a driver’s simulator you can take a turn on.
Discover this history of Japan's impressive train and railway system at the Kyoto Railway Museum.
Admire the museum's impressive collection of 53 types of railway vehicles as you explore.
Experience the what it's like to be a train conductor during a fun training simulator.
Enjoy and learn railways.
Fifty-three railway vehicles, from steam engines to a first-generation Shinkansen.
The preserved roundhouse and turntable, still used to move locomotives.
A driver’s simulator with a real cab and a real route.
Exhibits on signalling and control — how the network keeps to the second.
The Kyoto Railway Museum traces the Japanese railway from its beginnings to the Shinkansen, and it does it with the vehicles themselves — fifty-three of them, indoors and out, most of which you can walk up to and many of which you can board.
What to expectThe main hall puts steam locomotives, early electric stock and a first-generation bullet train under one roof, at ground level, without rope barriers holding you at a distance. Upstairs the exhibits turn to how the system is actually run: signalling, timetabling and the control of a network that works to the second.
The driver’s simulator is the part most visitors queue for, and it is worth the wait — a proper cab, a real route, and the brake handling that makes stopping a train at the right place harder than it looks.
Worth knowingIt is a large museum and an easy two to three hours, longer with children. It sits in Umekoji Park, a short ride or a long walk west of Kyoto Station, and pairs naturally with the aquarium in the same park.
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