The remaining 7 Static Life Steam Locomotives can all be found in Ome Railway Museum, up in the hills north of Tokyo. Ending our summer hiatus on Choo Tuesday, here’s a brief introduction to the museum itself.

Nestled up in the foothills of the Okutama mountain range, Ome has one of Japan’s premier shrine destinations – Mitake – within its boundaries. But I was here for an altogether different tourist destination at the top of a hill, although arguably you could say it was a shrine of sorts too.

About an hour and a half out of Tokyo, first on the Chuo line to Tachikawa and then onto its very own eponymous train line, you find Ome, a charmingly sleepy little place.

Once though, it would likely have been a little more lively; it was a post town on the Ome Kaido highway back in the Edo period; when it would also have been part of Musashi Province – in fact, Musashi Hikida & Musashi-Masuko are a twenty minute drive south, as the crow flies.

(It’s almost like everything is connected or something.)

Ome Railway Park is a good fifteen minutes walk from the station and it’s pretty much uphill the whole way. If you’re feeling fit, there’s a faster – albeit much steeper – route that goes up a set of stairs you can find in Nagayma Park. On a lovely spring day, this was a gorgeous walk: chirping birds, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves and the fresh mountain air swirling periodically, stirring up all the smells of the forest.

(For the days with more inclement weather, you can just walk up the road. It’s slightly less steep, drops you right in front of the museum and you’re less likely to get muddy feet.)

Ome Railway Park was set up in 1962, back when JR was a national company. It was established as part of their 90th anniversary celebrations. The museum inside is a little bit dated – but I found that added to the charm, almost like stumbling backwards in time .

There are a fair few locomotives in retirement atop this hill – I’ll be covering 7 of them in the coming weeks. There’s also a beautiful example of the type zero, my favourite shinkansen. This is 22-75:

This type was the first bullet train to enter service in 1964. There were 3,216 of them built between 1964 and 1986 with the last one being withdrawn from service in 2000; this was 22-141, who nowadays resides in York, and is the only bullet train outside of Japan.

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You can visit Ome Railway Park by going here.