Slovenian Railway Museum in Ljubljana

Related post: Visit to Ljubljana Old Town.

The header photograph shows a German-manufactured freight locomotive that came to Yugoslavia during World War II. The locomotive was renumbered post-war to JŽ 36-013.

Our Visit to The Slovenian Railway Museum

My wife and I recently visited the Slovenian Railway Museum in Ljubljana. This was a much-anticipated visit, one of many highlights during our stay in Ljubljana.

Related Post: Our visit to Ljubljana Old Town.

Entrance to the Museum complex.
Entrance to the Museum complex
Our entry tickets to the Slovenian Railway Museum.
Our entry tickets to the Slovenian Railway Museum

The roundhouse is directly behind the ticket office, meaning we were immediately in the thick of the many steam locomotives on display.

Locomotives In The Roundhouse

You can click or touch any photograph (above the text description on the photo) in the galleries below to see the full-sized version and cycle through the gallery.

Photo Gallery No. 1

Outside the roundhouse is the turntable. On the day we visited, museum staff were moving locomotives for an event the next day.

The turntable.
The turntable
Locomotive 03-002 being moved.
Locomotive 03-002 being moved

History Section of The Slovenian Railway Museum

Photo Gallery No. 2

Reminder: You can click or touch any photograph (above the text description on the photo) in the gallery below to see the full-sized version and cycle through the gallery.

Walking Around The Museum Grounds

Reminder: You can click or touch any photograph (above the text description on the photo) in the gallery below to see the full-sized version and cycle through the gallery.

Final Thoughts About The Slovenian Railway Museum

As you can see, we had very cloudy weather during our visit. Nevertheless, we greatly enjoyed our visit to the museum, which has a 4.5 rating on Tripadvisor. The semi-circular locomotive shed has a huge number of locomotives on display. Each locomotive has a detailed historical description in English. If I remember correctly, descriptions were also in German, Italian and Slovenian. The locomotive shed lighting was sufficient to take photographs without the camera flash.

The museum consists primarily of static locomotives and wagons and that was the case when we visited. However, the Visit Ljubliana website tells us that:

In spring and summer, the Railway Museum hosts occasional meetings of train enthusiasts. On such occasions, old steam locomotives are taken out of hangars and their furnaces are fired up as part of the museum’s efforts to keep all the artefacts in operational condition. Source: Visit Ljubljana website.

The exception to the static aspect of the museum was, as previously mentioned, the busy shunting work on the outside turntable. Multiple locomotives were being moved in and out of the locomotive shed to prepare for a special event the next day. All this shunting was done by a tractor adapted to work on railways. I believe the correct term for this type of vehicle is a road-rail vehicle.

Walking Around The Slovenian Railway Museum Complex – Outside

Walking around outside amongst the numerous locomotives and wagons was exciting. No restrictions were in place to stop you from walking wherever you wanted. This aspect is shown in Photo Gallery No. 3 above.

The Museum is Located Fairly Near to Ljubljana Old Town

Our hotel was located on Miklošičeva cesta, two minutes walk from Ljubljana’s old town. The leisurely walk from our hotel to the Slovenian Railway Museum took around 20 minutes.

Have you visited this museum? I would love to hear what your thoughts are. You can leave a comment below.

Internal Link

Post about our visit to Ljubljana Old Town.

External Links

Slovenian Railways Museum website (In Slovenian).  In English via Google Translate.

Facebook Page and Instagram account.

Museum Location on Google Maps.

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