The is a

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

Nishi-ku, Yokohama is one of the 18 wards of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 93,027 and a density of 13,210 persons per km². The total area was 7.04 km². Geography Nishi Ward is locate ...

, Japan, which opened on 10 July 2012. Managed by

Mitsui Fudosan is a major Japanese real estate developer with properties located globally. Mitsui Fudosan is one of the core companies of Mitsui Group. Corporate structure The company is organized into four divisions. *Office Building Division *Real Estate ...

, the museum houses the extensive collection of model trains built and amassed by the Japanese model railway enthusiast . The museum covers an area of approximately 1,700 m², with the display area covering an area of approximately 1,200 m².

Exhibits

Hara Model Railway Museum Ichiban Tetsumo Park 20140325

Approximately 1,000 items from Hara's private collection of more than 6,000 model railway items are on display. The centrepiece of the museum is a 30-metre x 10 metre diorama called which features "

1 gauge 1 gauge, gauge 1 or gauge one is a model railway and toy train standard that was popular in the early 20th century, particularly with European manufacturers. Its track measures , making it larger than 0 gauge but slightly smaller than wide ga ...

" (45 mm gauge) model trains from around the world, and has approximately 450 metres of track. The layout features working

overhead line An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, Electric multiple unit, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union ...

s to power trains via their pantographs. The collection also includes the original models of

Thomas the Tank Engine Thomas the Tank Engine is a fictional, anthropomorphised tank locomotive who originated from the British children's books ''The Railway Series'', created and written by Wilbert Awdry with his son Christopher Awdry, Christopher, first publish ...

and several of the other characters from the production of ''

Thomas & Friends ''Thomas & Friends'' is a British children's television series which aired from 9 October 1984 to 20 January 2021. Based on ''The Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son Christopher Awdry, Christopher, the series was developed for ...

'' prior to 2009 when the show was switched to

CGI animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Modern c ...

, some of which occasionally operate on the layout. Exhibits on display include models in

(45 mm gauge, 1/32 scale),

0 gauge O scale (or O gauge) is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad sca ...

, and H0 gauge.

History

The museum was unveiled to the news media on 20 June 2012 ahead of its public opening on 10 July.

Nobutaro Hara

The owner of the collection, Nobutaro Hara, was born in Tokyo on 4 April 1919, and built his first model train at the age of 13. He studied mechanical engineering at the

Tokyo Institute of Technology The Tokyo Institute of Technology () was a public university in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. It merged with Tokyo Medical and Dental University to form the Institute of Science Tokyo on 1 October 2024. The Tokyo Institute of Technology was a De ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Hara worked as a development engineer for the office equipment company . In his spare time, he continued to build and collect model trains, travelling to some 380 (?) different countries and building up a collection of over 6,000 items. Over the years, he received a number of invitations from museums to exhibit his models, but always refused. He finally agreed to lend part of his collection to Mitsui Fudosan because the museum was located in Yokohama, the terminal of Japan's first railway, from Shimbashi in Tokyo. Hara died on 5 July 2014 at the age of 95.

Access

The museum is located on the second floor of the Yokohama Mitsui Building in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, and is a two-minute walk from Shin-Takashima Station on the

Minatomirai Line The Minatomirai 21 Line (みなとみらい21線 ''Minato-mirai-21-sen''), commonly known as the Minatomirai Line (みなとみらい線 ''Minatomirai-sen''), is a subway line in Yokohama, Japan that runs from Yokohama Station to Motomachi-Ch� ...

, and a five-minute walk from

Yokohama Station is a major interchange railway station in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It is the busiest station in Kanagawa Prefecture and the fifth-busiest in the world as of 2013, serving 760 million passengers a year. Lines Yokohama Station is served by t ...

Address

1-1-2 Takashima, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken

References

External links

* {{authority control Museums established in 2012 Museums in Yokohama Railway museums in Japan 2012 establishments in Japan Mitsui Fudosan