By Nana Ando / The Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

At the entrance of Keio Rail-Land in Hino, Tokyo, I found automatic ticket-vending machines that look just like the ones you would see at a train station. After getting a ticket and inserting it into an admission machine, I was welcomed by a world of trains that spread in front of me.

I first tried an attraction that simulates driving a train. A 150-inch video display randomly shows 17 scenes a driver may see such as conditions during peak hours and rainy weather. I grabbed a handle to change the speed and stop the train at the proper point, but the timing to slow down was surprisingly difficult.

Katsura Kudo, 42, a former train driver and now Keio Rail-Land’s chief of staff, said, “You should’t stop the train abruptly because some passengers will not be holding onto a strap.”
  Keio Rail-Land opened in 2000. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Keio Corp.’s railway and bus operations, the facility was renovated in October 2013. At the same time, its 9-meter-long, 4-meter-wide diorama that re-creates a landscape along the Keio railway line was renewed. Miniature model trains run around the diorama, and their speed can be changed with handles operated by visitors.

Daiki Hirata, a second-grader at a primary school in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, was carefully operating a model train.

“I can realize a little bit what it’s like for real train operators,” he said.

The attraction Asureiruchikku (or “ath-rail-tick,” a play on the words “athletic” and “rail”) was created based on an employee’s idea. Visitors bounce on a trampoline and push a button high up on the wall to make announcements and the sound of a departure bell. They also can go down a slide while passing over a model iron bridge and past other objects to see things from a train’s perspective.

A small low-floor bus that was popular for its cuteness but retired from operations in 2012 is on display, and visitors can press a button to alight from the bus.

Five successive train models, including the 2400 series that operated between 1941 and 1969, are also on display. A mini-train runs around the displays, carrying children as they wave at spectators. Some of those children might someday become train drivers.

Keio Rail-Land

The two-story facility has about 1,200 square meters of floor space in which visitors can also experience such duties of a conductor as opening and closing train doors or making announcements in an old train car. Old station staff uniforms are also on display.

Address: 3-36-39 Hodokubo, Hino, Tokyo
Open: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (enter before 5 p.m.)
Closed: Wednesdays (open if Wednesday falls on a national holiday and closed the following day)
Admission: ¥250 (some attractions require an additional fee)

For more information, call (042) 357-6161