The long-awaited Shanghai Railway Museum, with locomotives rarely seen worldwide, opened over the weekend to attract train lovers, especially kids who are interested in train technology.

Some 1,000 items on display are expected to help remind visitors of railway history and the importance that railways still have in the world's most populous country.

In the museum, located in a four-storied English classic style building, a railway station 90 years ago, are two locomotives and a carriage that could be dated back to the 1920s and 1940s. The steam locomotive on display is described as one that is rarely seen now worldwide.

Also on display are trail tracks built in the 1890s, railway workers' uniforms of various eras, signaling and telecommunication equipment.

Simulation locomotives allow people to gain railway knowledge and have the feeling of engineering a train by working on a computer as if dispatching trains at a busy train station.

The Shanghai Railway Administration spent seven years and over 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) on the museum.

The museum is part of the Shanghai Science Education Bases project that will be completed by November.

The Shanghai Science and Technology Commission has allocated some 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million) to building museums, including those on astronomy, geology, banking, tunnel, traditional Chinese medicine and shipping.

(China Daily August 30, 2004)