Fukushima Town Seikan Tunnel Museum, Technology museum in Fukushima, Japan.
The Fukushima Town Seikan Tunnel Museum is a technology museum in the town of Fukushima, in Hokkaido, Japan, dedicated to documenting the construction of the undersea rail tunnel that connects the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. The displays cover the planning, drilling, and finishing phases of the project, using original machinery, tools, and technical records gathered on site during construction.
Work on the Seikan Tunnel started in the early 1970s and lasted nearly two decades before the tunnel opened to rail traffic in 1988. The museum was set up shortly after the opening to gather and preserve the machinery, records, and personal accounts left behind by the thousands of workers involved.
The museum shows how the tunnel changed everyday life for people living on both sides of the strait, and how local workers remember the project with a sense of pride. Original tools and equipment are displayed alongside photographs of the crews, giving a human face to what was largely an anonymous construction effort.
The museum sits close to the Hokkaido entrance of the tunnel, in the southern part of the prefecture, and is most easily reached by car. Visitors should plan for at least a few hours, as the exhibitions and the walkable tunnel section together cover a lot of ground.
Part of the museum is housed inside an actual service section of the tunnel that was used during the construction phase, giving visitors access to areas that sit beneath the seabed. The temperature and air pressure in this underground section are noticeably different from the surface, which gives a real sense of what working conditions were like down there.
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