Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railway, is located near Karve Road in Pune. India is famous railway museum hosting a number of train models varying in their types and sizes. Late Bhausaheb Joshi led to the foundation of this museum as he had the hobby to collect train models from his childhood days.

A special hall of 26’ x 26’ has been fortified in the Kothrud area in Pune which works as a small factory named as Soudamini Instruments holding the Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways.

During Diwali, a festival in India, children pass time by building “Killas” which are small fortresses as a replica of Shivaji’s Kingdom fortress.

History

It all started in the 80’s. Creating mobile working models and setting them up in different cities for the public to view was his initial movement. A numerous exhibitions in various cities like Pune, Mumbai, etc in India were his next initiative. Having trouble conducting such exhibitions for the inconveniences of mobile models he decided to make a permanent exhibition and then the thought of opening a museum of such models came into his mind which took the shape of its physical existence on 1st April 1998. At present, the museum has gone through a number of changes with all types of modern day technology including digital controls and multiple models. The current proprietor of the museum is his son Dr. Ravi Joshi.

Exhibitions

In 2011, the exhibition had 10 to 15 types of train models starting from steam engines to the bullet train and mini sky-train.

In 2003, a development in took place by which a miniature railway stimulates train movements. It was the first project in India with such a concept executed for a company known as HBLnife which is known for manufacturing and supplying products to the Indian Railways such as batteries, high-frequency track circuit data loggers, digital axle counters and electronic interlocking systems. It was also the first ever model in India which controls digitally and stimulate train movements.

Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railway remained the sole distributor for international brands like Fleischman, Rocco and Hornby Railways making scale models of trains since 2003. Ravi Joshi, the son of B.S. Joshi opened a hobby centre and named it as “Trainz” for distributing knowledge about train modelling. A manufacturing unit is always present under the museum as in 2003 the museum received bulk orders for making rail models from Australian companies like Eureka, Powerline and Trainworld. Those orders were passed to the Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railway from some manufacturers in China who failed to supply the production service within the allotted time as said by Ravi Joshi. Countries like Switzerland, Australia also buy railway kits and models directly from the museum besides the Indian Railways. The museum also manufactured a model with injection moulding process of Jungfrau Railway which is the highest railway in Europe and then received an order of 2000 sets in 2007.

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Joshi's Museum of Miniature Railways

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