RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.
Todd's Railfan Guide to
the Galveston RR
Museum
In General
Getting Here
Inside the Museum
Outside the Museum
Signals
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Galveston is an interesting place for the railfan to visit. Interestingly enough, there is quite a lot of railroad oriented "stuff" for the most hardcore to take in, for a town of this size.
I guess the number one attraction would be the Galveston Railroad Museum. The address for the museum is: 2602 Santa Fe Place, Galveston, TX 77550. The phone number is (409) 765-5700. Their website is at: http://www.galvestonrrmuseum.com/
I visited the museum in the fall of 2007, 22
years after my first visit. Many things had changed, and I was surprised
to see what a great little museum it had changed into. Definitely worth
the trip if you are in the Houston area. I'm glad to see they have
recovered from hurricane Ike.
In addition, you have the Galveston Trolley, two main yards for the UP and BNSF,
and a single bridge bringing trains in from the mainland, shared by both of the
roads, and the bridge has the last manned tower in Texas, Tower 99.
Galveston also hosts tons of non-rail oriented events and has a lot of history to check out. They have a great restaurants, a historic downtown area, a great little surplus store, beaches, and on the first weekend of December, "Dickens on the Strand", a Victorian version of a Renaissance Festival.
The website for the Galveston tourism bureau is here: http://www.galveston.com/default.asp
They did a great job on the inside of the museum, and I hope the figurines made it thru the hurricane! Everything inside was just in perfect condition... the thoughtfulness they put into planning the displays really turned out nice and makes for walking around a real pleasure to view the artifacts.
Right photo by Kevin M Cox.
These two engines have a special place in the hearts of
Marylanders, for they used to run on the Maryland Midland and pulled dinner
trains on the Entertrainment line prior to that. They have recently been
scraped due to being BER from hurricane Ike. Story at:
http://galvestondailynews.com/story/235614
They have done an excellent job with the various signals in the museum's collection. When I was there in 2007 and spoke with the museum curator, he invited me to join and help restore the signals. The commute would be a tough one :-)
NEW 6-3-2011
Last
Modified 08-Feb-2014