Beijing Railway Museum

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Updated: August 2004

Beijing has a railway museum, with a hall 300 meters long and containing 8 tracks, capable of housing 80-90 locomotives and cars. The museum opened on November 2, 2002 by the president of the National Railway. It is open Tuesday to Sunday 9-16. The head of museum said, they keep about 100 locos and cars for preservation.

Link to a more detailed web site

Links from the inauguration clebration: here, here, here, here. Most of people were Chinese, but 2 Japanese steam enthusiasts and about 40 people of a group tour from UK joined.

A Chinese web site is having latest information about CNRM day by day. http://www.hasea.com/youyue/index.htm Unfortunately, all info is written in Chinese but there are lots of useful articles.

Location

The museum is located in Chaoyang district in connection to the China Academy of Railway Sciences Test loop.

Access: From Beijing station, take #403 bus to the other end of the terminal Huaixing Tiedao. From Dongdan, take #813 bus to Huaixing Tiedao. When you get there, walk to northeast direction for 15 minutes. First cross the railway track and proceed to the entrance of China Academy of Railway Sciences. At the entrance, turn left and follow the road by the wall, and soon you will see the museum on your left side. The location map is here

Posdtal address: No. 1 Jiuxiangqiao North Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing, Phone +86 1 64381317, 64381517, fax 51841304. This is north of the test loop line.

Exhibits

A number of the locomotives at Depot 101, Kangzhuang, Sujiatun and Datong have been moved there, 31 locos initially, mainly steam.

Locomotives have been restored at Nankou depot in 2002, and were intermediately stored at Beijing 101 depot.

The list of preserved engines in the museum at first stage (16 steams, 5 diesels and one electric locomotive)

Where it is located

Steam engine JF [Maozedong] as of October 16, 2002

List of preserved engines:
Steam

  • JF304 Mao Zedong - Fengtai
  • JF 1191 Zhu De - Harbin
  • JF 2101 - Jinzhou
  • HP 0001 - Jilin
  • JS 5001 - Fengrun
  • KF1 006 - Hefei
  • KD7 534 - Hangzhou
  • JF6 3022 -Majiaoba
  • SL12 890
  • PL3 51
  • PL9 146
  • KD7 534
  • GJ1019
  • SL601
  • RM1001 (formerly preserved at Datong locomotive works)

    • Diesel

  • BJ 3003 - Taiyuan
  • DFH5 0001-Tianjin
  • DFH2 0008-Shijiazhuang
  • DF4 0001 -Linfen
  • DF1 1301 -Yitulihe

    • Electric

  • SS1 008 - Guiyang

    • A train with the Datong locomotive works based exhibits for the museum arrived at Beijing 24 Oct 2002. Photos are here

    The railway museum in Shenyang

    Source: 28. august 2004 From: "Prof_Steam", steam_in_china@yahoogroups.com

    Recently visited the steam loco museum in Shenyang and found it worth visiting. My friend and I had the place to ourselves most of the time. When you come in the door there is a sign stating no photo, video, or drawing. But no one really seemed to mind my taking some digital photos of the engines. The displays are well spaced and acess is easy to see engines from all sides. An added bonus is that there is a gallery that permits the engines to be viewed from above. The exhibits are all the engines from the old outdoor museum south of the city plus the addition of a QJ and JS types and three sheetmetal and wood replicas of early locomotives including for some reason an old locomotive resembling the British "Rocket". There is one remaining open track in the roundhouse display area..maybe for an SY. Some incongruity is added by there being two arts and crafts sales areas in the musuem area and three custom built automobiles with no explanation as to their origins and reason for being in a steam loco museum. There is also a small offering of mementos including a postcard collection, a VCD (2-disks)with interesting footage of China railways and some custom printed sheets of postage stamps. You have to look for the gift counter but they are in the front of the building. Also take the stairs up from the gallery area to find the large display of scale models of locos. Was happy to see the model of the prototype QJ there from the old museum. The presence of American prototype models is not clear. I found the historic narratives (in English) about the locomotives and Chinese railorad history to be thorough and well presented with photos, maps etc. These are mounted on the walls on both levels. The walls are also bedecked with numerous photos of histric and recent steam locomotives. All in all worth the visit. The location is prtty far out of the center city toward the east. It is just beyond the botanical gardens and can be reached by taxi or by local bus (4 yuan). There is not a bus stop at the museum but the driver will stop on request. You can flag the bus on your return trip. Engines have been cosmetically restored from their deplorable rusted out condition at the old outdoor location. Rods are on the engines and all parts are on most. All in all well worth the visit for at least half a day.

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