Railway Museum

Tim went skiing. I knew William would be upset dad was going without him, so I made plans to go to the Railway Museum.We had a great view of Fuji from Tokyo.
The train enthusiasts discuss how fast we are going on this 'shuttle.' It was only one train-change to get to Omiya. Then, we got on this nice little elevated tram/shuttle to the museum.
Outside, they had the date and a train to take a picture of. The year is Heisei 21. Emperor Heisei has been such for 21 years. So, instead of 2009, we're in Heisei 21 over here in Japan!
The museum is world-class. VERY well done. The turn-table in the middle is operated twice a day. It was exciting to see, and very loud, as they blow the whistle.

Each exhibit had a little bar code for cameras to read (it's all the rage here in Japan, and easy to use... use your camera to 'scan' the barcode, and the information shows up on your screen!). We borrowed a scanner from the museum, and all you did, was at the bottom of the description in Japanese, were these small bar codes, and we'd do the one for English. There were other languages, like Chinese and Korean. Cool, huh?

The diorama was amazing, and they had video, as well. Only after the show could you go up and look at it.
We loved this very Art deco train. Most trains you could go inside, except the Royal Carriages, which you could look at through glass.
This is a stairway down, to look under the train. It was neat, as now I know how they seal up under a shinkansen, how a cog train looks like underneath, and a few others.
The first few shinkansens are in the museum. The first shapes were like 'bullets.' Ergo, 'Bullet Trains.'
Although this small ride's shinkanen is shaped more like the modern ones, it was definitely not as fast. I think we hit the incredibly high speed of 3 kph as we trundled down the track.
These are all the boys on the trip, minus Ian (3 months) on Hallie's lap. On the way back, we took a real shinkansen ride between Omiya and Tokyo. The boys loved the rides at the museum.
Even this popular ride. If you hold on to the escalator, it pulls you down a 'slide' on the side.
While we had to get tickets to ride the other specialty rides at the museum, this one was on a first-come, first served basis.
William's favorite authentic 'ride' was being able to drive the mini-train. They have these cool little tracks, and a miniature train. The controls are like the ones for real trains. Thank heavens William had plenty of experience on the Japanese train driving game. He was an ace. You had to not go over a certain speed limit. You have to be 6 to drive the train. WOO HOO!!!

Tim (wherever he was) had the good video camera with him, so I used my cell phone. Pretty chunky video, but you get the idea!