Vermont Rail System links seven shortlines, led by the Vermont Railway of 1963, that keep freight moving on much of the old Rutland Railroad. Here is its story and how families can ride its passenger trains.

Huntingdon County's railroad story is spread across several places, from the Historical Society's transportation museum in the Hunt Railroad Tower to the 1850 tracks down Allegheny Street and the Broad Top coal lines.

At Promontory Summit in Utah, Golden Spike National Historical Park marks the spot where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific joined rails on May 10, 1869, completing the first transcontinental railroad.

In the old station agent's house on the Hamakua Coast, community volunteers tell the story of the Hilo Railroad, wiped out by the 1946 tsunami, with photos, a red caboose and a model train room.

In Old Sacramento, the reconstructed Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station recreates the transcontinental railroad's western terminus around 1876 and is where riders board the museum's river excursion trains.

Southern Pacific 4449 once pulled the Daylight between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Today volunteers keep the 1941 streamlined steam engine running from its home in Portland, Oregon.

The Beech Creek Railroad Depot Museum is listed in the rural Muhlenberg County community of Beech Creek, Kentucky, where the railroad once shaped how the town grew. Visitor details are not posted online.

Travelers looking for a transportation museum in Douglas, Wyoming will find the town's railroad collection at the Douglas Railroad Museum and Visitor Center, set in an 1886 depot with rail cars outside.

A family guide to 33 Texas train museums, depots and rides in about 30 towns, from Galveston's railcar yard and Frisco's Big Boy to the Hill Country Flyer, free trolley rides in Dallas and Piney Woods steam.

In Greeley, the Colorado Model Railroad Museum runs the Oregon, California and Eastern, a 5,500-square-foot HO layout built by volunteers over seven years, plus a walk-through 1919 caboose.

On more than 400 wooded acres along Blackman Stream in Bradley, the Maine Forest and Logging Museum keeps a 1790s logging settlement, a water-powered sawmill and a rare collection of Lombard log haulers.

The Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City cares for Virginia & Truckee locomotives and cars, runs steam and motor car rides on scheduled days, and keeps its own restoration shop busy year round.

In downtown Hinton, West Virginia, the Hinton Railroad Museum preserves the early days of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway with model trains, John Henry era tools, uniforms and old photographs.

The Napa Valley Wine Train carries diners from Napa to St. Helena and back in mahogany-paneled Pullman cars built in the early 1900s, rolling past Yountville, Oakville and Rutherford vineyards.

Housed in Wichita's 1890 City Hall, the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum tells the city's story across four floors, from cattle drives and the railroad era to the Air Capital of the World.

The Central Square Station Museum fills a former New York, Ontario and Western and New York Central depot with period scenes, a railroad library and restored cars outside, open Sunday afternoons in season.

In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Old Slater Mill is the 1793 cotton mill where Samuel Slater brought water-powered spinning to America, now part of Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park with ranger-led tours and Junior Ranger badges.

Oregon's train museums run from Portland's steam enginehouse to coastal logging trains, a double-decker trolley in Brooks and the world's longest miniature railroad near Chiloquin.

From 1999 to 2010, the Upper Hudson River Railroad ran scenic excursion trains along the Hudson River in the Adirondacks near North Creek. Here is what it was and what visitors should know today.

Owned by the City of Elkhart since its founding in 1987, the National New York Central Railroad Museum tells the story of the NYC System with locomotives, rolling stock, models and artifacts.