Joshi Rail Museum

My Son's summer holidays have made me a thinking pot always trying different methods to keep him engaged to avoid major damages to the household decorations or dents to the kitchen utensils, which are his ultimate source of entertainment when he decided he has enough with his toys and books.

For a long time I have been using that road but never occured to me to find out more and go there. The place is simply called the Joshi Rail museum and sometimes miniature Rail Museum. So Saturday evening was the time we chose to explore it.

I must say I wasnt half as ready to see what came next once I went up the rickety old steps which leads you to a corridor which is lined on one side with an old railway compartment and on the other side with a pair of old double doors, which lead to the 'show'.

By the time we reached there, it was a couple of minutes when the show had started , and we stealthily crept in. What do I see....There is a huge circular board, which almost filled the room with elaboratly done up terrains, rail tracks and a number of trains (miniatures ofcourse!!). There were some stands surrounding this board where many exited kids and parents like me were standing with their mouths hanging down and starry twinkles in their eyes seeing the marvel in front of them.

An anchor in voice over was telling the whole thing like a story and including the stories of trains in between. While he would do that, that particular train would move and the kids would be thrilled. Similarly there was an express highway and the car and various other vehicles on it would move, then there was a circus and its whole tent was lifted and a miniture rink could be seen with the trapeze artists and animals. But the icing on the cake was when the whole board could be revoled and even the parents started clapping.....It was amazing...simply superb...

I was wondering about the person who collected all these with such passion and got them to be presented in this show. There were trains everywhere. The show, the decorations, the models and toys they sold ....just transported me back to being a kid and enjoying all this with the same gusto..