Burrito West Blog

Peter and I went to a train museum on Thursday (our designated tourist day). This is the kind of little day trip that is easy with Peter here and would be kind of a pain to do if he wasn't - he can easily get the train tickets from the office and can translate the museum stuff and order us tasty things from the bakery and understand the announcements at the train station explaining that our train is delayed but will come eventually. Non-Polish speakers could do most of these things, but it would be work. Which is all to say, I'm glad Peter is here so I can just relax and have fun looking at old trains in an old roundhouse!

The Museum of Industry and Railway in Silesia is a private museum in Jaworzyna Śląska outside Wroclaw. It's pretty cool. Mostly, it's a parking lot for old trains, including 50 steam engines! Lots of cool stuff. After we explored the trains outside, we went into the roundhouse to explore and heard meowing. A little black and white cat came running to see us - super friendly guy who was happy to let me fawn over him and followed us around for a bit before going off to do more interesting things.

There is one steam engine in this collection that is ENORMOUS. It's a Polish-built train and it barely fit through the roundhouse doors, apparently. Huge. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to see that engine go by on tracks.

The museum also has a collection of old computers, equipment from a railway school (including a model that students would use for training), and a Harley Davidson collection.  Definitely a cool place to spend a few hours wandering around. There aren't many explanations or written information - but I think in the summer there are tours.  We were very happy to wander around on our own.

I had a great time taking photos - you can find them in the Wroclaw folder on Flickr.