A family guide to 6 North Dakota train museums and depots: free railcars near Mandan, a model layout in a West Fargo pioneer village, a rare wedge plow in Minot and Northern Pacific depots in Fargo and Dickinson.

A guide to where railway history lives in New York's three southwestern counties: the Chautauqua County History Resource Hub, the McClurg Museum's library and online archives of Erie Railroad towns.

At Grant Beach Park in Springfield, volunteers keep Frisco history alive inside four connected train cars led by Frisco locomotive No. 4524. Admission is free on summer Saturdays.

In Morris County, the Whippany Railway Museum fills a rebuilt Morristown & Erie freight house with New Jersey rail history and runs vintage train rides on its Easter, excursion and pumpkin days.

From 1991 until 2014, the Portland Vintage Trolley ran replica 1904-style streetcars on part of Portland's MAX light rail line between downtown and the Lloyd District. Here is what it was and how to explore its story today.

An hour east of San Diego, the all-volunteer Pacific Southwest Railway Museum runs vintage train rides from Campo's 1916 depot and displays about 90 locomotives and cars on a 140-acre site.

The Western America Railroad Museum in Barstow, California shares Pacific Southwest railroad history from the east side of the Harvey House depot, with indoor artifacts and an outdoor collection of locomotives and cars.

Opened in 1987 by Ed and Brenda Clark as the Hobo Railroad, Lincoln's riverside excursion train now runs as the Granite State Railway, with vintage coaches, winter Santa trips and electric rail bikes.

A guide to the Historic Illinois Central Depot Museum in Centralia, Illinois, with honest notes on what to confirm before you go, where else to see Centralia's railroad story, and nearby rail museums.

Inside Memphis Central Station on South Main Street, the Memphis Railroad & Trolley Museum tells the city's railroad and streetcar story, with modest admission and weekend hours.

San Angelo's Railway Museum fills the depot built in 1909 and 1910 as Texas headquarters for the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad, with model railroads, a speeder and signs in English and Spanish.

In New Freedom, Pennsylvania, the Northern Central Railway of York runs a replica 1860s steam engine and vintage diesels on the Civil War line Lincoln rode to Gettysburg, with trips to Howard Tunnel.

The Truckee Donner Railroad Society keeps Truckee's railroad past in public view with a caboose museum, a ride-on park railroad, a model of Truckee in 1927, a rotary snow plow display and guided Trestle Tours.

In the slate town of Monson, the local historical society keeps the story of the two-foot gauge Monson Railroad, which hauled slate to Monson Junction and carried passengers and mail for years.

A family-run railroad in Trego, Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Great Northern runs pizza, dinner, sightseeing and overnight bed and breakfast trains through the Northwoods along the Namekagon River.

Ottawa's 1888 limestone depot has been the Franklin County Historical Society's Old Depot Museum since 1963, with an HO model railroad, a 1940s caboose and the start of the Prairie Spirit Trail.

At the 1907 Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul, the Minnesota Transportation Museum keeps a working turntable, more than 50 vintage rail cars and Saturday train rides for families.

The Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway began as George J. Gould's Wabash push into Pittsburgh. Its story now survives in archives, maps and engineering drawings rather than a museum building.

Sioux Falls has no single railroad museum, but downtown holds two historic depots from 1886 and 1888, a working diamond crossing, a land boom history marker and a rail yard now being redeveloped.

Railroad heritage in Montana's Judith Basin, from the Jawbone line that reached Lewistown in 1903 to the Central Montana Rail short line, with train era displays at the free Judith Basin County Museum in Stanford.