Working yards, grand depots, a rack railway climbing Mount Washington since 1869, and the largest classification yard in the world. The country was laid out by railways, and the Highway Heads guides keep running into them.
26 stops across 18 states, taken from the Highway Heads city guides.
Alabama
Railroad Park
A 19-acre downtown park with a 4,000-seat amphitheater and a Rail Trail offering close-up views of active train tracks.
Alaska
The Alaska Railroad depot
The Alaska Railroad's Anchorage depot is at 411 West 1st Avenue. The railroad's own history describes Anchorage in 1915 as a tent town and railroad construction community along Ship Creek, and it states that it operates year-round, regularly scheduled passenger service connecting Southcentral and Interior Alaska. Timetables differ by season and by train; the railroad's schedules page carries the current ones.
The end of the railroad
The southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad is in this town of 2,717. Standing where the line stops is a small thing that explains a lot about Alaskan geography.
Arizona
Williams
The other gateway town, an hour from the South Entrance and the southern terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway, which has run the 64-mile route since 1901, stopped in 1968, and came back from private investors in 1989 — exactly 88 years after its first trip. Williams was also the last town on old Route 66 to get bypassed by the interstate, in 1984.
Colorado
Forney Museum of Transportation
A transportation museum at 4303 Brighton Boulevard whose own list of collection highlights includes Union Pacific ‘Big Boy’ Steam Locomotive #4005, in a collection that also spans vehicles, motorcycles, steam locomotives, aircraft, fire apparatus and bicycles. The museum’s site has an Admission and Hours page.
The railroad's own yard and museum
The yard at the Durango end is a working one: the railroad's FAQ says its diesel locomotives are used for daily train switching once the steam locomotives return for the night, and the railroad runs a guided Behind The Scenes Tour of the yard, machine shop, roundhouse, car shop, rolling stock and museum three times a day from May to October, at $20 for ages 12 and up and $12 for ages 6 to 11. The museum is at the south end of the roundhouse, admission is free, and it is open daily in the summer (May to October) and on dates the Cascade Canyon winter train runs.
Georgetown
A silver-era town — major silver deposits were found nearby in 1864 — that is now a National Historic Landmark District, with its visitor center right at the I-70 exit, and the Georgetown end of the Georgetown Loop, a narrow-gauge railroad to Silver Plume, completed in 1884, whose route uses three hairpin turns, four bridges and a 30-degree horseshoe curve to reduce the grade.
Idaho
Northern Pacific Depot Railroad Museum
Built in 1901 with brick salvaged from a hotel in Tacoma, this depot served trains until the interstate arrived; in 1986 the entire building was moved roughly 200 feet across the river to save it from demolition.
Kentucky
Historic RailPark & Train Museum
A 1925 limestone L&N depot with a two-story museum inside the old colored waiting room from the segregation era, plus vintage railcars out back including one of only two surviving L&N Railway Post Office cars in existence.
Big Four Bridge, Waterfront Park
An 1895 railroad bridge with no rails left, converted to a pedestrian and bike crossing over the Ohio into Indiana, inside an 85-acre park built on what used to be scrapyards.
Montana
Livingston
The original gateway town to Yellowstone, with a 1902 railroad depot turned museum and a long list of writers and artists who've settled here, from Jim Harrison to Thomas McGuane.
Nebraska
The Durham Museum
The museum occupies Omaha's former Union Station, an art deco building designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood that opened on 15 January 1931; the last passenger train left the station in 1971. Its permanent exhibits include train cars from the 1940s and 50s, among them a Pullman car, a lounge car and a caboose, and a gallery on the station's architecture and the history of passenger travel.
North Platte
In North Platte, Union Pacific's Bailey Yard, which Union Pacific describes as the largest railroad classification yard in the world. Union Pacific says the non-profit Golden Spike Tower and Visitor Center, an eight-story building overlooking the yard, is open to the public year-round.
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Across the Missouri River in Iowa. Union Pacific says President Lincoln named Council Bluffs as the railroad's eastern terminus in 1863, and the Durham Museum says construction started in Omaha because there was no bridge across the Missouri at that time.
Nevada
The Nevada State Railroad Museum
Holding the Inyo locomotive and the relocated Wabuska Railroad Station, covering the Virginia and Truckee line that carried Comstock ore. The museum’s own page lists hours of 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursday through Monday, and adult admission of $10. Train rides run on select weekends, holidays and special events and are not included in museum admission; its 2026 timetable lists steam trains (V&T No. 25 and Glenbrook) among its scheduled operations, so check the timetable for dates before planning around a ride.
New Hampshire
Conway Scenic Railroad depot
A Second Empire-style station designed by Nathaniel J. Bradlee, opened in 1874, still serving as the railroad's Victorian station today.
Mount Washington Cog Railway
A rack-and-pinion railway on the western slope operating since 1869, the first successful rack railway built in the United States.
North Dakota
Valley City & the Sheyenne River Valley Byway
About 33 miles east in a straight line: Valley City, on the Sheyenne River. Valley City's visitors bureau lists the Highline Bridge at 3,860 feet long and 162 feet above the river bed, and describes the Sheyenne River Valley National Scenic Byway as stretching 63 miles along the river from Baldhill Dam through Valley City to Lisbon.
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
The Monongahela Incline
Pittsburgh’s original funicular, running since 1870, seven years older than its more famous Duquesne sibling and just as steep a climb up Mount Washington.
Tennessee
Bryson City, NC
A small North Carolina rail town near the park's Deep Creek area, home to the depot of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, whose Nantahala Gorge excursion rides alongside Fontana Lake and the Nantahala River. The town's tourism authority points to rafting and paddling in the Nantahala Gorge.
Texas
Pearl’s Engine No. 2
A fully restored 1907 locomotive that once hauled grain for the brewery sits on display at the Pearl, back in place since 2006 after a ground-up restoration — easy to miss while walking between restaurants.
Grapevine
A walkable historic Main Street, several wineries, and the northern terminus of the vintage railroad that runs down to the Fort Worth Stockyards. The settlement here dates to 1844, the oldest in Tarrant County.
Utah
Heber Valley
South, with a heritage railroad whose track runs alongside the Provo River to Vivian Park. Its Deer Creek Express excursion is a 90-minute round trip with views of Deer Creek reservoir.
Wisconsin
National Railroad Museum
Founded in 1956 in Ashwaubenon and recognized by Congress in 1958, the museum holds more than 5,000 artifacts, including British Railways locomotive Dwight D. Eisenhower (his WWII command train), Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4017, and a rare GM Aerotrain.
Wyoming
Cheyenne Depot Museum
Housed in the 1887 Union Pacific depot — the last of the grand 19th-century transcontinental-line depots still standing, since the others burned or were demolished. Union Pacific donated the building to the city and county in 1993, and it’s now a National Historic Landmark.
