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I am likely to be travelling to Kyoto in December 2015. I understand that the museum is undergoing significant reconfiguration to include more modern rollingstock. Will the roundhouse and the collection it houses still be accessible at that time?

First I thought this was the truest expression of tetsudou mania I'd seen in a while--someone noticed that EF510-1 was taken to Umekoji (from Suita, not its home base of Toyama) to be turned 180 degress. Is this for wheel wear? Or maybe for repair purposes, as it wasn't driven there under its own power? But then, it seems common to use a DE10 or whatever to move other locos around. Handy having Umekoji available, else they'd have wye it somewhere. http://railf.jp/news/2015/01/23/163000.html

Here are two good videos of an open day sort of event at Umekoji. Ayokoi's video features a still image of an informational panel with some English before showing the engine itself. Karibajct's video has some scenes inside the roundhouse, filmed from on top of something about as tall as a locomotive or tender, it's an interesting view of the interior. by ayokoi by karibajct

As discussed here http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/7717-osaka-modern-transportation-museum-to-close-april-6-2014 , the Osaka Modern Transportation Museum will close April 6, 2014, and its contents (some amount of it, anyway) will move to JR West's new museum at Umekoji, which is to open in 2016. The video below is by YT uploader KENKENKAICHO, who has quite a lot of Kansai private railway material, particularly Kintetsu. In this video, it appears that the museum is having a sort of special exhibit, "Shuzohin Collection: Bakuryoten." I don't have a good translation of that, particularly the second word , but I'm thinking that these items were maybe in storage, not part of the regular display, and the don't want them to get moldy (based on that second word). The plates in English from New York and Pennsylvania ironworks might have come from the Amarube Viaduct, I think some of the technical drawings shown are of its structure. It was rebuilt in concrete in the last few years, but the previous structure was around 100 years old. I hope all of this will go to the new JR West museum, it looks like a very interesting group of items.