Museum Island

Establishment Purpose

• The “Hamasen Museum of Taiwan Railway” is located at the Penglai Warehouse in the Pier-2 Art Center. It was an abandoned warehouse of the Kaohsiung Pier 2. Based on the local history of “Hamasen,” the museum presents the 100 years of railway history in Taiwan to account for the railway development from military and industrial transportation needs to the major form of public transport in Taiwan in terms of national defense, politics, economics and civilization, and its influences on Taiwan’s society, industry, economics and civilization. Unlike traditional railway exhibitions, the museum is designed in the setting of full-spec HO (1:87) with rails and train models to display tracks of 100 years of railway development in Taiwan alongside with theatrical lighting and sound effects. With the model of different classic goods trains and passenger trains, the museum takes visitors to travel to big cities and small towns in Taiwan across time-space to the people and events in places along the railway since Japanese colonization through the interlocking and conversion of time and space.

Department Introduction

“Hamasen” (はません) is the Japanese Romanization of “shoreline,” which was a railway branch line along the west coast linking the southernmost ports to the goods warehouses during Japanese colonization. To preserve Hamasen as a valuable urban heritage, a coastal land which underwent the development from the fishery and salt industry, sugar refining industry and export trade, the Hamasen Museum of Taiwan Railway was built to interpret the history of railway transport development in Taiwan in an unprecedented scale and dynamic exhibitions, shining together with the adjacent West Side Harbor Line, a branch line previously used for transporting commodities.

Audience Services and Facilities

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