The Dongjiao Pavilion is an exhibition hall in the China Railway Museum and the largest railway locomotive museum in China.
The gate of Dongjiao Pavilion of China Railway Museum is directly connected to the outdoor exhibition area. Many old locomotives of different models, eye-catching exteriors and bright colors, rest quietly on the rails, glutting visitors’ eyes. The indoor locomotive exhibition hall houses more than a hundred Chinese locomotives of different models from different periods, with written details on the model, historical background, and story of each. These locomotives come in different colors, heights, and gauges. Among them, there are the earliest existing steam locomotive, the ‘No. 0,’ the ‘Mao Zedong’ Steam Locomotive, and the ‘Zhu De’ Steam Locomotive, named after great men in Chinese history, and the first generation of diesel and electric locomotives built after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Many valuable railway vehicles, such as Chairman Mao’s official car and Premier Zhou’s official car, are also displayed in the exhibition hall, where visitors can enter the cars and learn about these great men and the railway.
Dongjiao Pavilion of China Railway Museum has always attached great importance to popular science education. According to the museum’s deputy director Wu Qian, in recent years, the staff of the museum has combined online and offline science education to create a series of popularization activities called “Railway Culture Reception Room”, integrating educational purpose, fun, and interaction. They have conducted an in-depth study on characteristic cultural resources, and organized activities about railway science, such as school and public lectures. They have now developed 42 distinctive courses on 10 themes, with over 100 sessions held so far, with over 90 million participants.
This year, the museum launched an online class called “Zero Distance Between Love and Knowledge” to support rural children with more learning opportunities and platforms in the form of live webcasts, allowing the museum’s special educational resources to reach teenagers in rural areas.
The first Beijing Museum Month raised its curtain on the morning of May 1st at Dongjiao Pavilion of China Railway Museum, with “100 Museums Enter the Campus” as an important part of the series of activities. During the event, the China Railway Museum donated 100 copies its science education system, “Into the World of Trains - Steam Locomotives” to schools. The event attracted more students to gain a deeper understanding of the profoundness of Chinese culture, further broaden their horizons and minds, and at the same time, promoted exchanges and cooperation between museums and schools to share resources and achieve mutual benefit.
