Hara Model Railway Museum — Attraction in Yokohama

American Family visiting. Be sure to buy your tickets in advance. There is a Family mart on the first floor where you can use a machine to purchase. I didn't purchase in advance and was lucky to be in while it was slow so a museum staffer came down and helped me purchase. Very friendly.

Very little English spoken but the exhibits have some English to help and there is a QR guide (I didn't use). Lots of trains on display from around the world as well as the history of the museums namesake. It was very cool. Recommend Google Translate to help where needed. The hardest part for non Japanese speakers would likely be the ticket purchase. Tickets are purchased for specific time slots so if they are busy and you just walk up, they may not have tickets but the place was very slow when we visited.

The diorama room was amazing with different sets of trains running at different times. Lighting goes through the cycle of the day. One staffer in this room was very enthusiastic explaining the diorama and all the hidden things and art you can find in it. He used a translator with great success to explain things.

A slow walk through the exhibits you spend probably about an hour going around (less with impatient kids, more for the enthusiast who wants to take in every detail of the trains). Highly recommended and a fun visit. A little on the high side for tickets however there is no souvenir shop so the price kinda evens out. Loved it and would...

Great place for both young children and adults (who like railway modelling).

It is a small museum but we had a great experience enjoying the railway and city models with running trains. A lot of thoughts have been put into the details.

The only downside is the inconvenience of buying the entrance tickets at the convenience store at level 1 (Note that museum is at level 2) by foreigners.

The ticket needs to be purchased from a machine that looks like a copier within the convenience store. We struggled for a while and got help from the local to buy the tickets as most of the on-screen instructions were in Japanese even if English was selected. Even the two kindhearted guy and lady who help us were struggling. Hope the museum can look at selling the ticket at the entrance. We really appreciate their help , or we would have given up. You need to fill up a contact number when buying the ticket. Just fill out the convenience store number listed on the instruction sheet on the machine. Once the forms are completed, such as time slot for the visit, an order sheet will be printed, then you have to make payment at the cashier.

At the museum, we can see a few families and local couples, so we are most likely the only foreigners there.

If you plan the visit, I hope the above will help. Before deciding on whether to visit, do have a look at the...

It's the private collection of a guy whose name I forgot. When he was younger, he travelled different countries to take pics and vids of trains. There are exhibits about that. Anyway, the model train diorama is in g-gauge, or 1-gauge (45mm track width), so the diorama is pretty big. About the size of a tennis court. It depicts an european scenery with a small town, a few mountains and a lot of railway related stuff. There are plenty of seats to have a rest and just enjoy the trains going round and round. They have a lot of German trains running, also french and American. The trains also change (there is a timetable, of course). A nice guy is talking to the guests and explains a lot of stuff. The lighting was really good, changed from day to night every few minutes. There's also a smaller HO-gauge diorama depicting Yokohama. You have to buy the tickets in advance. Easiest way is to get them at the convenient store (the touch screen machine where you can buy almost anything online). I spent a couple of hours there and have...