Guangzhou Railway Museum

Today is my day off from work and what better way to spend it than go across the border and visit the Guangzhou Railway museum.  Getting there is quite easy as it is close to a metro station.  As an added bonus it is free to get in.

There were a few engines and carriages on display outside, including an impressive looking black steam engine.  As today is a weekday there were just a handful of other visitors.  The first thing which struck me was the lack of English text on the artefacts, the only English text available were as summaries on each section of the exhibition.

The exhibition was done in chronological order and Guangzhou was the birthplace of China’s railways with the first railway opened in 1908 and the (still operating) Kowloon Canton(Guangzhou) railway opening two years later. 

As a railway enthusiast myself, I was expecting a bit more, even though the floorspace was huge, the number of exhibits and artefacts was disappointingly low.  This was especially true with the number of trains on actual display. The museum focused on history and especially the achievements post 1949 rather than on railways, the trains and how they changed China.  It didn’t help that the carriages on display didn’t let visitors inside them.

I left after about two hours and unless it changes radically I would not be making a repeat visit.