PA Railroad Museum

The big day that Trevor had talked about for months finally arrived on Friday! We visited the PA Railroad Museum, and at noon took a train ride on the Strasburg Railroad line.

The PA Railroad Museum was amazing, and you could spend all day there. We didn't get to see all the trains in the building, and because it was too cold and windy out, we weren't able to see the trains displayed outside. The PA Railroad museum has an on-site restoration facility, and many of the trains displayed have been restored. The quality and quantity of trains in this building is hard to describe. Don't know if the pictures do them justice.

Prior to our trip, Trevor and I visited the PA Railroad museum website many times to look at the pictures of their trains. He soon could identify the different trains by name, and we were excited to see them in person!

Little engineer is ready to see some big trains!

The train display is not heated, so we were all bundled up!

They have an AWESOME kids train room with so many interactive displays. There was a lego train set where you could push buttons to make different trains move, a Geo-Trax train set, a Kinex track set, trains around the ceiling, an older kids train set where they perform different tasks like loading coal onto freight cars, and so on. You could probably spend 3 hours just in this room.

using the Geo-Trax controller to move a train

Lego train set that was AMAZING and so realistic!

using a push button to move a train on the Lego set

After we played in the kids room, we headed out to see the big trains. Some the trains nearest the entrance were just for display and you couldn't board them. But they did have platforms where you could look into the trains. They also had a lot of train artifacts (luggage, tools, carts) to go along with the displays to make them realistic.

The red caboose we had seen online!

John Bull train - one of the oldest trains around.

Body of the train is made of wood!

On board a Diesel Engine

a very cool looking snow plow

completely made of wood; looks like a tug boat on tracks!

They had many engines, coach cars, and freight cars open for exploring!

This coach car is to be restored; still in pretty good condition.

The seats were pretty comfy!

They had a really fun kids display out in the main train area. Here kids are to shovel "coal" (chunks of black foam) into the fire box. Trevor had a ball doing this!

His first scoop full!

"Gotta get some more coal!"

On the far side of the museum, they had stairs that lead to a catwalk. This allows you to view the whole train display. It is a really neat view of the whole place.

Figures showing how they loaded ice into refrigerated cars.

We had a great time at this museum, and would like to go back again. This was only a sampling of the pictures...there were so many trains! It was really cool. Our next stop was the Strasburg Railroad for a real train ride!

Taking a little nap before the next big adventure!