Back in 2019, I had the great joy of taking my first trip to Japan. One of the stops planned was for a visit to LEGOLAND Japan in Nagoya. A good friend of mine - upon discovering that I was in Japan and was staying at LEGOLAND - insisted that I should make time to visit the "SCMAGLEV and Railway Museum", the official museum of the JR Central Railway company. The museum, my friend told me, is located next door to the railway station that services the area near LEGOLAND Japan and that it's no real detour at all. I was very glad I heeded my friend's advice! After purchasing my entry ticket (from a train ticket machine, no less!) and entering the Museum (through automatic ticket gates!), I came into a darkened room; the "Hall of Speed". Here, in static preservation, is steam locomotive C62 17, the world's fastest narrow gauge locomotive. It sped into the record books on 15-Dec-1954, clocking a speed of 129km/h whilst performing load tests on a (then) new bridge. Even though it wasn't moving, it certainly was a very impressive machine, and being able to walk right up to the loco was quite an experience. This visit, and this locomotive, is one of the main reasons I have come back to the model railway hobby. A few months after returning home from my trip to Japan, Kato co-incidentally released an N-gauge (1:150-scale) model of a C62 locomotive, which I promptly purchased from an online retailer. But that is a post to share on another day!
