The Oyster Bay Railroad Museum pairs Theodore Roosevelt's 1889 home station with a rail yard where Long Island's last operating steam engine, Locomotive #35, waits beside a turntable you can ride.

Founded in 1999 by three model railroaders, the Hagerstown & Frederick Railway Historical Society keeps the Frederick area's trolley story alive through an archive of over 2,000 items, talks and exhibits.

Volunteers in Yakima, Washington, run historic electric trolleys on the former Yakima Valley Transportation Company line, with summer weekend rides, holiday trolleys from Halloween to Christmas, and subsidized school charters.

At the top of the Alleghenies in Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, families watch busy main line trains disappear into historic tunnels, then climb aboard a restored 1942 Pennsylvania Railroad caboose.

Chartered in 1884, the Stewartstown Railroad in southern York County, Pennsylvania, is an all-volunteer short line running themed excursions through the Deer Creek valley, from fall foliage trips to the Candy Cane Express.

Known as the Milk Run, the Montpelier & Wells River Railroad served every village between Montpelier and Wells River for 83 years. Its turntable still sits in Montpelier, and the Cross Vermont Trail follows its route.

Downtown Buffalo's Pierce-Arrow Museum tells the story of the city's car makers, from Pierce-Arrow and Thomas Flyer luxury cars to a full scale Frank Lloyd Wright filling station built in 2002.

The Cincinnati Railway Museum is a Queen City rail history group that posts little visitor information online. Here is how to reach it, and where to see trains in Cincinnati today.

In downtown Burien, Washington, the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive keeps the paper side of regional railroading safe: ledgers, maps, timetables and photographs saved by rail heritage groups.

In the lower level of Casa de Balboa, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum fills 27,000 square feet with club-built layouts of California railroads, from the Tehachapi Loop to Carrizo Gorge.

In Bowling Green's restored 1925 L&N depot, the Historic RailPark & Train Museum pairs a two-story museum with guided tours of restored railcars, from an E8 locomotive to the L&N president's office car.

The Flagler Museum in Palm Beach opens Whitehall, Henry Flagler's 1902 Gilded Age mansion, along with the pavilion that shelters his private Railcar No. 91.

Since 1999 the Heartland Flyer has carried passengers 206 miles between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth every day, the only passenger rail service left in Oklahoma and a living piece of the state's rail story.

In Salamanca, New York, a 1912 passenger depot built by the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway has been restored as a rail museum, with its original ticket office and telegraph keys still in place.

On the Steamtown grounds in downtown Scranton, the Electric City Trolley Museum tells how the city got its nickname and runs vintage trolleys over the old Laurel Line, through one of the longest interurban tunnels ever built.

Owned and run by the City of Grapevine, the Grapevine Vintage Railroad carries riders in air-conditioned 1920s-era coaches from Main Street in Historic Grapevine to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

In the Upper Cumberland town of Monterey, a replica depot museum gathers train memorabilia, coal mining history, local art and the stories of the mountain community.

In La Crosse's Copeland Park, the volunteer 4000 Foundation cares for Burlington Route Hudson locomotive No. 4000 and the Grand Crossing Tower, and funds the work with two big regional train shows.

The family-owned Oregon Pacific Railroad runs freight on two Portland-area branches and has long offered public Saturday train rides along the Willamette River from the Oregon Rail Heritage Center.

The Museum of the American Railroad in Frisco cares for more than 70 locomotives and cars on 15 acres, including Union Pacific Big Boy 4018, and runs the TrainTopia G scale layout next door.