Despite living in Ljubljana for nearly twenty years, I only recently found out we have a Railway Museum. Maybe that’s because it’s located away from the city centre and housed in very unassuming buildings. It doesn’t matter, because once we found out, we were ready to explore it. Climb aboard with us and get ready to learn about the railways and trains in Slovenia and beyond.
I love trains. But it's love I share with many. Trains, railways, journeys, stations, they hold a special appeal, don’t they? One that is hard to rationally describe. Perhaps it's the sense of an upcoming adventure, sights of rolling scenery, sounds of the wagons, ... All of it combined make trains many people’s favourite form of transportation.
If you are one of them, then exploring the Railway Museum is a must and bring along the kids, they will have so much fun.
Enter the main building, where you buy your tickets. The main building also houses the most stunning part of the museum: the exhibition of the many locomotives. We were all in awe and a bit frightened too by all the imposing looking steam locomotives.
The oldest locomotive there was built in 1861. Then there was the most eminent of museum's engines - express locomotive designed in 1910 for the Ljubljana – Trieste line. We later learned this was actually the first railway line in Slovenia – going South from Trieste up North to Vienna and passing through Ljubljana on its way.
The kids were excitedly running from one locomotive to the next and I did a bit of daydreaming and tried to imagine these beauties in their prime, getting ready to take passengers on a trip
When we said goodbye to the locomotives, we moved to the building right across the main one, where the second part of the exhibition is housed.
This is the part where I wished I had better knowledge of railways. We were completely alone in the vast place, so there was no one to explain to us what all the many levers and buttons were for. I could guess some, but it would've been great if we could've learned more.
The place shows the station master's office, the main part of any railway station, because it ensures that trains operate safely. They use and control the signalling equipment, transmit orders, etc. The museum nicely demonstrated how the procedures and technology changed through time. At one point telegraph was used for communication, then came the telephone and other modern telecommunications followed.
In this part of museum, you get to learn all about that, see the uniforms that were used through time, how the railway lines were built and repaired. But we especially liked the look into the station master's office from the beginning of the 20th century and the remake of an old waiting room.
Asked if they enjoyed the visit my girls gave a unanimous yes. It is a very interesting museum, one we all enjoyed mainly because it was different from anything we had seen thus far. We strongly recommend a visit.
The museum is located on 35 Parmova Street - since it's not in the centre, I recommend taking a bus – number 14. It is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm. Adults pay: 3,5 Euros and school kids 2,5 Euros. We needed an hour for our visit.