Hong Kong Railway Museum

A very much underrated museum.
Railway has been an integral part of the life of a lot of people, especially on the Kowloon side. Despite the fact that the original KCR (Kowloon-​Canto Railway) served less people and had less stations than her little brother underground, they certainly had a much longer and richer history (KCR started operating since 1910, MTR started operating since 1979), and this place is a perfect spot for showcasing a snippet of it.
The museum was the original Tai Po Market Station, as you could see the main part of the station entrance was preserved. It somehow shows the significant of the old stations, as there are only four stations in the whole KCR system that haven’t changed their the locations nor names in the last 100 years. One of the other notable change was the Kowloon station, which was originally located at the Clock Tower you can see now in TST.
Now other than walking on the railway and pretending you are in Taiwan, you can also hop on to some of the old, discommissioned trains. Some were meant to be coal-​powered, and some were meant to be diesel-​powered (me think). I do remember that when I was young (like VERY young, okay?), KCR replaced all the trains to be powered by electricity. But I was so confused (remember? I was young!) why the hell you’d like to have 電器化火車 (as in, «household appliance-​ified» trains) which it actually meant 電氣化火車 (railway electrification system). Oh boy. I could totally imagine my kids would ask why do we even call it 火車 (like, «fire car»).
Anyway, you are free to take pictures here, exceptional for events, commercial purpose, or wedding. I’m sure the «wedding» part was added later on as it was a overly popular place to take wedding pictures, and people practically affect the normal operation of the museum.

My friends and I love exploring special things in our surroundings and taking pictures of them. During the long summer holiday after the HKDSE exam, all of us were always free since most of the summer programmes hadn’t started. One day we decided to go back to the past — just kidding, we went to the Hong Kong Railway Museum!
To get there we took the East Rail Line to Tai Wo Station. There were plenty of signage so it was quite easy to reach there. The Museum has both indoor and outdoor areas. The open-​air ones mainly demonstrate the old train model throughout the railway history in Hong Kong. It’s a perfect place to take pictures with your buddies. The background is nice, and it’s something like «connecting the present with the past». To add a touch of humour, my friends took some funny pictures of us chasing the train /​being chased by the train with our signature shocked faces! On top of that you can walk along the track without any fear as there aren’t any mobile trains! I remember when we were crossing the track to the other side in Shifen, Taiwan last summer we risked our safety and took some photos on the track (there were some guards there though)… Now you can even sit on the track!
The walls outside the museum office were another attraction for us. Why? Because of the red bricks! Their beauty is just incomparable. Perhaps that’s the reason why I love the walls in the Centennial Campus of my school! Not only can we see the appearance of the old train models, we can also walk inside and see the train compartments in the historical coaches on the right of the office. You can find the train with wooden chairs and dim lights inside, and the one with blue sofa. You can feel the progress of the railway history during your visit. The focus of our visit might be the photos and our funny faces, but I’m sure that what we’ve gained isn’t just confined to what we captured — we’ve also learnt more about how our lives have been enriched throughout the century.

The Hong Kong Railway Museum is the site of the original Tai Po Market Station, built in 1913. When the Kowloon-​Canton Railway (KCR) went from ‘choo choo’ to ‘swoosh’ in 1983, Tai Wo and Tai Po Market station opened up to the north and south of this site, thus making it redundant as a working station. (Historical note: the KCR went ‘doot doot’ in 1997.)
Now, the site is for people like me who love a bit of history, and who love their locomotive ‘choo choo’ trains. And it’s all free!
To be honest, the site looks a little fake because everything is restored in its full, vibrant colour, including the entrance of the station which is designed with the Chinese temple architecture. I guess I prefer a little more of the ‘crumbling walls and cobwebs’ history, but it was good fun walking down the old railway tracks in the open-​air. The exhibition room has examples of train tickets and models of the KCR train, including a ticket office that has been restored and refurnished so you can see how it all was back in the day. It won’t take you more than an hour to get around the whole museum.
It does seem a bit strange that this relatively untouched piece of railway history is rather isolated from other tourist attractions, so I’m not sure how one could make a day of it. Being right next to a hectic local Tai Po street market, you could do a little food market shopping after, I guess? Or you could walk another 15 minutes to Man Mo Temple (in Tai Po).
I guess Tai Po in itself is full of other less-​touristy stuff to do, but if you’re around the area, this little gem might be worth checking out.