About Us

The Railroad Tourist aspires to be a clearinghouse, a single source to help you locate destinations and activities catering your passion for some combination of trains, food, travel, history, fitness and historic preservation.

To qualify to be included here, an entry must have a connection to railroad history, travel or preservation, and must meet these additional criteria:

1.  The information shown can contact the facility.

2.  The location is open to the public.

3.  The facility has established hours of operation.

The Railroad Tourist aspires to be a clearinghouse, a single source to help you locate destinations and activities catering your passion for some combination of trains, food, travel, history, fitness and historic preservation.

 

Sites to be included:

     •    Accommodations (Bed 'n Breakfasts/Hotels/Motels) that:

•     Overlook working railroad facilities

•     Are set in restored railroad structures

•    Dinner trains

•    Railroad Excursions – both train and trolley

•    Museums - including those with significant permanent railroad exhibits, i.e. Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, the Smithsonian, and Philadelphia's Franklin Institute.  When a non-railroad museum holds an exhibit of interest to readers - such as when railroad china was exhibited at Bradley University – it will be posted as an Event at Journeys for a Railroad Tourist

•    Rail trails

•    Restaurants occupying restored train stations or former railroad equipment

•    Trackside eateries – restaurants overlooking a working rail line

Not included:

•    Train-watching spots (they are numerous and too varied)

•    Model railroads (unless they meet the three criteria listed above)

•    Restored buildings/equipment used for other purposes, including sites that are merely visible - the ex-Milwaukee Road

     and Northern Pacific stations in Great Falls, Montana, for example, or Norfolk Southern's Enola (Pennsylvania) yard, or

     the east portal of the Hoosac Tunnel

•    Structures and/or equipment which continue in active use by a working railroad – such as Philadelphia’s 30^th Street Station or Los Angeles’ Union Station – unless they house one or more of the sites to be included listed above – such as the Southern Pacific Historic Train Depot in Tucson, Arizona, which includes Maynard’s Market and Kitchen, a trackside eatery