Municipal museums. Shanghai keeps setting 'em up; I keep losing hours of my life to oversized LED screens and pointless dioramas. A museum devoted to Shanghai's public rail system sounds like it would be a banal, bureaucratic game of self-celebratory grab-ass. It is, and it鈥檚 not bad.
The Shanghai Metro Museum is located near Ziteng Lu metro station. That鈥檚 largely uncharted waters, where they have landmarks you鈥檝e never heard of, beyond the point where Line 10 splits and most trains head off to the Hongqiao transport hub. Don鈥檛 do that. Take the southern branch towards Hanzhong Lu. You鈥檒l find the 3,000 square meter museum built high over some non-metro train tracks, and surrounded by cranes aggressively advancing retail鈥檚 front line.
An employee told me the museum will eventually be part of a shopping mall, like the rest of Shanghai. That employee is William Wang. Here he is playing with a floor-sized interactive metro map. Select your favorite stop 鈥� say, Jing鈥檃n Temple 鈥� and bam, there it is. More of a Hongkou Stadium lady? Hey, that鈥檚 there too.
The reason you should know William is that this museum has some weird-ass hours. It鈥檚 open to everyone on Tuesday. It鈥檚 also open Wednesday through Friday, but only for group bookings, unless you know William that is. Email him a day or two in advance 鈥� 345632725@ 鈥� and he鈥檒l get you in. Tickets cost 15RMB.
Once inside you鈥檙e in for a treat. Dio-fucking-ramas. Here鈥檚 what looks like a Line One train passing over a Line Two, minus the gauntlet of zombies you have to run when you transfer at People鈥檚 Square.
The metro museum鈥檚 scale models depict some of China鈥檚 top metro-takers 鈥� 1940s Anglo-Americans. That gal on the right looks like she stepped out of a US army World War II propaganda poster. Get to Zhongshan Park? We Can Do It!!
Well, not all of us. A pair of empty shoes serves as a memorial to the metro suicides that took place before those preventative Perspex guards went up.
This here is one of the diggers used to excavate metro tunnels. It looks a lot like from the film Labyrinth, with a conveyor belt added at the back for extracting your pureed Jennifer Connelly.
And this is Mr. Dong. He hasn鈥檛 done the month or two of training needed to drive real metro trains, he says, but 鈥渙f course I want to!鈥� He let me drive the sim a few stops, and it鈥檚 tougher than you鈥檇 think. Unlike a car鈥檚 accelerator and break, which are both responsive to a broad spectrum of pressures, these trains just have three acceleration settings 鈥� go faster, hold steady, and go slower 鈥� which helps explain why trains sometimes miss their marks.
I tried to get the simulator to jump the tracks, but if you exceed 80km/h the whole things shuts down and comes to a halt. You have to hit a restart button before you can accelerate again. You also can鈥檛 exceed slower speeds as you enter stations. The horn is pretty cool though.
This guy at the Longcao Lu Station didn鈥檛 like my driving. Dude should really tuck his shirt in before he comes at me.
It wouldn鈥檛 be a metro museum without a working model train set. This is a simplified version of Line 4. Not very accurate 鈥� it鈥檚 above ground, and never passes under the Huangpu 鈥� but neat enough.
Ever wonder how the maglev worked? Magnets. You read it here first.
One of the museum鈥檚 best and least edifying exhibits is this 5D cinema (10rmb). Starting on a regular metro track, you plough through rock walls, battle bats and a giant tarantula, plunge underwater, get sexually assaulted by a stingray, and eventually fight your way past seagulls to arrive at a hovering Shanghai sky city. Guess that solves the city鈥檚 sinking problem.
The 5D cinema marks a dark turn in the story of the Shanghai metro museum. Here鈥檚 a display of what to do when the train catches on fire: Get the fuck onto the escalator before someone blocks your escape with her stroller.
An interactive touchscreen game is a real hit with the crowds. Touch all the dangerous materials. A tactile people, the Chinese.
Here鈥檚 a real head scratcher. Jia Zhangke can鈥檛 get his movie A Touch of Sin played in China (too many sensitive issues, including a high speed train derailing), but the Metro Museum has what looks like courtroom sketches of all kinds of transport disasters.
A gift shop helps ease any anxieties brought on by the disasters section. There are metro mascot Changchang cushions (78rmb), a metro map umbrella (58rmb), pencil cases (48rmb), a rug (150rmb), a shanzhai metro Monopoly set, soft toys (38rmb), caps (40rmb) and a lot more. Weirdly, you can鈥檛 buy any metro cards.
Except for some videos of bespectacled bureaucrats in short-sleeved white shirts, that鈥檚 about it. Could鈥檝e been worse, right?
For a listing of the Shanghai Metro Museum, click here.
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