A Brief Word On Trainspotting
1964. Britain still hangs its citizens; America is violently swithering about the Civil Rights Act; Bob Dylan introduces The Beatles to cannabis. Meanwhile, Japan is getting ready for its first Olympics by unleashing the shinkansen, or what the world will come to know as the Bullet Train.
While the rest of the world may as well have still been hunting mammoths and fending off sabre-toothed tigers, Japan was dragging itself not just into the present day, but well into the future.
The initial trials of their wonder machine were a roaring success, and within a year it would be topping 210km/ph, halving journey times. Today it gets up towards 300km/ph, with plans to go even faster. It’s almost never late and it has an exemplary safety record.
Japan hadn’t invented the train but it had created a new way of travelling.
These factoids and many more we absorbed at Saitama’s Train Museum. It’s an enormous place, filled with retired trains from over a century of train travel, from Imperial relics to trendy models of the 1950s. It’s not so much a graveyard as a nursing home. Elsewhere there’s an old steam engine on a turntable, simulators of what it’s like to drive today’s trains, and an actual train track where children (and Katy) can have a go at driving an actual train.
The whole place really wouldn’t be out of place in the middle of Washington DC with the title Smithsonian above the door.
1964年、イギリスは英国議会の議員を選出するための総選挙に忙しく、アメリカは公民権運動の末に市民権法を確立させ、ボブ・ディランはビートルズをマリファナ吸いにかえる。そんなことが世界で起こっているさなか、日本は日本で最初のオリンピックの開催と、世界で“弾丸列車”と呼ばれる新幹線の同時開通に全精力を注いでいた。そして世界がマンモスの捕獲やサーベルの歯をもつ虎を守っている間に、日本は今ではなく未来へ向けて着々と歩みを進めていたのだ。
その未来への懸け橋となる電車はまずまずのスタートをきり、１年以内には時速210kmを達成。そして今や時速300kmの世界を実現し、更なる加速を見据えている。日本の電車はほぼ遅れる事はなく、その安全性には素晴らしいものがある。日本は電車を開発したのではない。新しい旅の形を作り上げたのだ。
私達はこれらを埼玉の鉄道博物館で学んだ。ここには任務を終えた列車の数々が日本中から集められており、“御料車”や1950年代のモデルのものまで、多くの列車を見る事ができる。そこはまさに歴史を築き上げた列車達が余生を楽しむ場所とでも言おうか、または彼らに感謝の念を伝える場所とでも言おうか・・・。そして何とここでは子供が（そしてケイティも・・・）実際に列車の運転体験をする事ができるのだ。
ここはワシントンDCにあるスミソニアン博物館に勝るとも劣らない素晴らしい場所だ！
3 Comments
Robert
October 14, 2011The train takes you to that museum from Omiya is the smallest form of public transport I have traveled on.
Yes there are even smaller, but these are usually rides in amusementparks or within the musea itself. And this one is outside and being used as a normal with its first stop from Omiya being the museum.
Oh and when people are in Tokyo, take some time to visit this museum, its really worth it.
Robert
October 14, 2011The train that takes you …. :s
Robert
October 14, 2011Rubber fingers i guess. “being used as a normal commuter train”