In a wooden freight depot in Shortsville, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Historical Society keeps more than 3,000 items from the old LV, runs an N scale layout and opens its doors for Sunday open houses.

In rural Manatee County, the volunteer-run Florida Railroad Museum lets you ride the exhibits: weekend diesel excursions on six miles of former Seaboard Air Line track between Parrish and Willow.

In Snoqualmie, Washington, the Northwest Railway Museum runs trains between historic depots in Snoqualmie and North Bend and shows locomotives and a chapel car in its Train Shed Exhibit Hall.

A family guide to Wyoming's 10 train museums and rail sites: Cheyenne's depot and Big Boy locomotives, free Laramie depot tours, walk-through cars in Douglas and the Evanston roundhouse.

A family guide to 5 Delaware train museums: steam trains in the Red Clay Valley, coal-fired miniature trains in Yorklyn, a twice-saved depot in Georgetown, and a free tower and caboose in Harrington.

Built in 1914 and abandoned by the railroad in 1981, the Antlers Frisco Depot was saved and now holds the Pushmataha County Historical Society's museum and genealogy center.

The Louisiana Steam Train Association is the all-volunteer group behind Southern Pacific 745, a 1921 steam locomotive, now moving its collection from Jefferson Parish to a new railyard in Garyville.

Nickel Plate Express runs themed excursions out of Forest Park in Noblesville aboard 1956 Santa Fe Hi-Level coaches, from fall foliage rides to the Reindeer Express. Fares, equipment and field trip details inside.

Between Boone and Blowing Rock, Tweetsie Railroad has carried families around a 3-mile mountain loop behind narrow gauge steam since 1957, adding a Wild West town, rides, a zoo and holiday nights.

A family guide to 11 train museums and heritage rides across Arizona, from copper country engines in Chandler and trolleys in Tucson to the 1901 line that still runs to the Grand Canyon's South Rim.

Volunteers at the Amarillo Railroad Museum are recreating the Santa Fe across the Texas Panhandle in HO scale, alongside a garden railway and real rail cars including one from the Department of Energy White Train.

The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum cares for a restored 1903 New Haven depot in Lenox and runs one-hour Hoosac Valley Train Rides from Adams on restored vintage equipment.

Since 1988, My Old Kentucky Dinner Train has served plated meals aboard restored 1940s dining cars, rolling out of Bardstown through Bernheim Forest and past bourbon distilleries behind 1950s F-unit locomotives.

In the 1892 depot at the center of Old Fort, this small railroad museum remembers the town's role as the base for helper engines that pushed trains up the steep grade toward Swannanoa and Asheville.

Hartford's Wisconsin Automotive Museum pairs more than 125 classic cars and the largest group of Hartford-built Kissels with a 250-ton Soo Line steam locomotive from 1913 and other railroad artifacts.

In the historic Center Rutland railroad station, volunteers of the Rutland Railway Museum show local rail artifacts and two running model layouts every Saturday, and invite visitors to watch real trains go by.

Based on the line between Irvine and Ravenna in Estill County, the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation is a nonprofit restoring Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotive 2716 and building a rail heritage yard.

Maine kept America's two-foot gauge railroads alive, and families can still ride them in Portland, Alna, Boothbay and Phillips, along with trolleys in Kennebunkport and weekend trains from Unity and Hancock.

Chartered in 1832 and saved by rail fans in 1958, the Strasburg Rail Road runs 45-minute steam train rides through Lancaster County farmland, with Christmas trains, Thomas and a dining car.

The volunteer-run Tennessee Central Railway Museum in Nashville runs vintage streamlined passenger trains east to Watertown and Lebanon, plus a Santa Express each December from its Willow Street base.