Across from Foot Lake in Willmar, the Kandiyohi County Historical Society keeps Great Northern passenger Engine 2523 beside its museum, which fills the town's original 1900 Great Northern depot.

At Powerland Heritage Park in Brooks, volunteers of the Willow Creek Railroad Museum run 1:8 scale steam and diesel trains on more than 5,000 feet of track, big enough for families to ride.

Saved from demolition, moved 660 yards across the tracks and restored over ten years, Hearne's 1901 depot reopened in 2011 as a free museum with curator-led tours and a model train layout.

Marking 50 years in 2026, the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue, Ohio, displays Nickel Plate Road 757, a 1939 dome coach and dozens of life-size cars you can climb aboard.

North of Mandan, the North Dakota State Railroad Museum spreads rolling stock across five acres beside an air-conditioned exhibit building, with the 1890 Steele Depot, a Railroad Hall of Fame and free summer admission.

Bonanzaville, USA in West Fargo is a 12-acre pioneer village run by the Cass County Historical Society, where a model railroad club fills the former Kathryn Depot and Northern Pacific 684 is part of the collection.

The South Shore Line Museum Project is a Northern Indiana nonprofit building a museum of the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Railroad, starting online with photos, stories and a 40-year collection.

In Chillicothe, Illinois, the historical society saved the town's Rock Island depot in 1980 and turned it into a railroad museum with a caboose, photographs and memorabilia from the Rock Island and Santa Fe.

Built in 1897 from Oakdale into the Sierra Nevada foothills, the Sierra Railroad hauled lumber, mining supplies and passengers, and part of it now belongs to a state historic park in Jamestown.

In Grand Rapids, Ohio, volunteers of the Toledo, Lake Erie & Western keep 10 miles of the old Clover Leaf route, a 901-foot Maumee River bridge and a growing outdoor collection of locomotives and cars.

From its depot in Clarkdale, near Sedona, the Verde Canyon Railroad runs four-hour round trips through a red-rock canyon to Perkinsville, with open-air cars, a 734-foot tunnel and the John Bell Museum.

A family guide to 16 train museums and rail sites across Virginia, from Roanoke's steam giants and the C&O yard in Clifton Forge to scenic trains in Staunton and depots in Richmond, Suffolk and Manassas.

Volunteers in Fort Smith brought the city's old streetcars back from a field in Mulberry and a sale ad in Shreveport. Today a 1926 Birney car carries riders three-quarters of a mile through downtown.

For forty-four seasons the Sugar Cane Train carried families in open-air coaches behind steam engines across West Maui. The Lahaina, Kaanapali & Pacific Railroad no longer runs; here is its story.

The all-volunteer Little River Railroad runs real steam trains from Coldwater to Quincy, Michigan, with a layover to watch the engine switch ends, plus pumpkin, Santa and Hillsdale trips.

A replica 19th-century depot on a quiet residential street in Lomita, California, with a 1901 Baldwin steam locomotive, a whaleback tender, cabooses and a small park around them.

The S&S Shortline Railroad Park and Museum in Farmington is a family-run train park with a small museum, a large collection of engines and rail cars, and small trains to ride on select summer Saturdays.

In Old Town Bowie, the city's restored railroad station, interlocking tower and 1923 caboose tell how a Baltimore and Potomac stop grew into a town. Free weekend visits, with group tours on weekdays.

In Boone, Iowa, the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad runs vintage trains through the Des Moines River Valley and keeps the James H. Andrew Railroad Museum, with steam, diesel and electric equipment.

The Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven runs excursion trains over 17 miles of the old L&N Lebanon Branch and keeps more than 100 pieces of rolling stock, from cabooses to a Pullman sleeper.