In Orrville, Ohio, an all-volunteer society runs train, caboose and speeder rides at its rail yard and cares for the 1868 Pennsylvania Railroad Union Depot and its signal tower.

From 1891 to 2003 the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad served northern Maine. Its story now lives in library collections, photo albums, newsletters and videos rather than one museum building.

On Grand Avenue, the volunteer-run Phoenix Trolley Museum keeps the story of the city's streetcars alive, from the first mule-drawn car in 1887 to Birney car No. 116, with Saturday open houses October to May.

In the Latonia area of Covington, Kentucky, volunteers of the Railway Museum of Greater Cincinnati care for about 80 pieces of historic railroad equipment on a four-acre yard, much of it from the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Volunteers in Chehalis, Washington, restored a 1916 Baldwin logging locomotive in the 1980s and built a railroad around it. Today the museum runs vintage coach rides through the Chehalis River Valley.

In the Pennsylvania Railroad's 1882 Master Mechanic's Building in Altoona, the Railroaders Memorial Museum tells the stories of the workers who made Railroad City run, with K4 No. 1361 in its roundhouse.

The Chattanooga Choo Choo preserves Southern Railway's Terminal Station in Chattanooga, one of the city's first historic preservation projects and now a dining and entertainment complex.

In the village of South Charleston, Ohio, the old DT&I railroad depot stands out for a design unlike the railroad's standard stations, a reminder of the line's 1870s roots.

The Willamette Shore Trolley carries riders between Lake Oswego and Portland's South Waterfront on a historic rail line, rolling over trestles, past river views and through the 1921 Elk Rock Tunnel.

In Rockville, the New England Civil War Museum fills an original Grand Army of the Republic meeting hall with artifacts, letters and stories of Connecticut's Civil War soldiers and their families.

The Texas Electric Railway linked Dallas with Denison, Corsicana and Waco from 1908 to 1948. Its story now lives in university photo archives, a railroad scrapbook and a Texas historical marker.

The Train Collectors Association's National Toy Train Museum in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, shows one of the world's largest toy train collections, with seven operating layouts that kids can help run.

The Florida East Coast Railway Society is a statewide group of historians, hobbyists and volunteers who study the FEC from its pre-1895 beginnings to today, sharing what they know online and at free events.

The Historic Huntsville Depot, built around 1860, is the oldest passenger depot still standing in Alabama, with Civil War soldiers' graffiti inside and a turntable and roundhouse on its 7-acre downtown grounds.

Oregon schoolchildren sold dollar shares to build it, a vote of local kids picked the Zooliner's look, and it once carried its own U.S. mail. Portland's historic zoo train is on the National Register, and the Friends are working to bring back its forest ride to the Rose Garden.

New Mexico train museums for families: narrow gauge steam over 10,015-foot Cumbres Pass, a transportation museum in Albuquerque's Rail Yards, Harvey House history in Belen and depots along Route 66.

New Jersey train museums for families: narrow gauge rides in Allaire State Park, an 1854 freight line in Hunterdon County, gem panning by the Delaware River and an 1872 depot saved in Maywood.

Bismarck's railroad story centers on its historic station, and the closest dedicated rail museum, the North Dakota State Railroad Museum, sits just 8 miles away north of Mandan with free summer admission.

In Old Sacramento, the California State Railroad Museum fills more than 225,000 square feet with restored locomotives and cars, and runs a vintage excursion train along the Sacramento River.

Coos Bay's railroad and logging story is told in two places: the Coos History Museum on the waterfront, with its logging gallery and outdoor steam donkey, and the Oregon Coast Historical Railway's equipment display.