In Boulder City, the Nevada State Railroad Museum runs 45-minute weekend train rides on the old Boulder City Branch Line, with an outdoor display pavilion, live steam rides and a model railroad car.

Founded in 1956 as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris keeps more than 200 railway vehicles and runs weekend train and trolley rides on its own line.

On the old Missouri Pacific right-of-way in west St. Louis County, the National Museum of Transportation keeps more than 190 major rail and transit exhibits, led by Union Pacific Big Boy #4006.

In Roanoke, volunteers at the James N. Gillum Archives of the Norfolk & Western Historical Society have cataloged more than 200,000 drawings, photographs and documents from the N&W and Virginian railways.

A family guide to 7 Idaho rail stops in 6 towns: a chateau-style depot museum in Wallace, a 1915 steam engine at Silverwood, a working Amtrak station in Sandpoint, and news on Boise's depot and the Thunder Mountain Line.

In Jackson, Missouri, the all-volunteer Iron Mountain Railway runs themed excursions in 1926 passenger cars, from James Gang train robberies to dinosaur days and its busy Christmas season.

Old Pueblo Trolley's volunteers ran heritage streetcars in Tucson for 18 years. Today their South Tucson transit museum holds trolleys from around the world, a fleet of vintage buses and an 1886 horsecar.

Boothbay Railway Village Museum runs a narrow gauge steam train around a recreated Maine village of historic buildings, with an antique auto museum, a large model railroad and resident goats.

Run by the Meridian Rails Historical Society, the Meridian Railroad Museum fills a 1906 freight station beside the Norfolk Southern mainline in downtown Meridian with exhibits, wooden trains and rolling stock.

Colorado packs narrow gauge steam, the world's highest cog railway and a 100-car railyard into one state. Here are 15 train museums and heritage railroads, with drive times from Denver and Colorado Springs.

Every May at Steam Engine Park in Pawnee, Oklahoma, volunteers fire up steam traction engines, a 100-ton Corliss engine and a steam sawmill, then close the evening with a spark show.

Near Silver Spring in Colesville, Maryland, the National Capital Trolley Museum gives unlimited rides on historic streetcars through Northwest Branch Park and keeps the largest collection of Washington, DC streetcars.

The New Orleans streetcars are living rail history. The St. Charles Avenue line has carried riders since 1835, through steam, horse and electric eras, and families can still hop aboard today.

At the Historic Goleta Depot near Santa Barbara, a 1901 Southern Pacific station moved across the freeway in 1981 now hosts a free museum, a caboose and weekend miniature train rides.

In Richmond's Manchester neighborhood, volunteers of the Old Dominion Chapter NRHS run a railroad museum inside the restored Hull Street Southern Railway station, with a steam engine cab kids can enter.

Near Gallitzin and Cresson, Pennsylvania, this National Park Service site preserves the first railroad over the Allegheny Mountains, where stationary steam engines hauled canal boats up ten inclined planes.

In Casey Jones Village in Jackson, Tennessee, visitors tour the family home of railroad engineer Casey Jones, see his pocket watch, and climb aboard a 35-ton replica of his engine 382.

Volunteers run the Downeast Scenic Railroad from Hancock, near Ellsworth, Maine: a 90-minute narrated weekend ride in century-old coaches over the old Calais Branch and the Union River Bridge.

Virginia Railway Express carries Northern Virginia commuters into Washington, DC, over routes with roots in the 1850s. Here is the history and how families can experience it.

On 155 wooded acres near La Porte, Indiana, volunteers at the Hesston Steam Museum run steam trains on four track gauges, a 1900 sawmill, a steam power plant and antique traction engines.