Colorado Railroad Museum

The museum was nicely laid out however the customer service sucks. There was a medical emergency with either a staff or visitor to the museum and no one came out to let us know the train ride was delayed. When my husband went to ask he was greeted with attitude and no explanation about how much longer of a delay and when he mentioned letting guest know she ignored him with any explanation we won’t ever come the 13 hrs again to see it on vacation

Steampunk at the Stationnnn! Woot! This place is gorgeous, historic, beautiful, and incredible. I had the pleasure of watching Hydrogen Skyline play, and it was such a great show. The scenery was breathtaking, and the music was awesome. The people were so friendly and nice, especially those who put the event on and organized it. I can’t wait to go back next year. I think I’m gonna dress up this time. :]

Someone at the Railroad Museum has quite a sense of humor. See the HO scale railroad and town in the basement. Note that a building is on fire and that people across the street are cheering. The building is … the Internal Revenue Service.
Bravo!

I thought that the museum would be much better than it actually was. It seems as if the price is a bit steep for what is actually offered.
We came here for the Easter bunny train ride. Based off of the description, I was expecting the actual train ride to include the Easter bunny which it did not. In fact, the Easter bunny literally just sat in one spot giving each child one piece of candy.
We will not be returning to this museum. The train ride is short, the line is long, and there wasn’t much to see. The best part of the visit is the train exhibit downstairs. It seemed as if many children loved it though.

My twin four years old boys love trains and this museum brought them much joy!
I have never scene such a collection of trains from so many different eras in one spot. Many of the trains you could actually enter, which definitely added to the experience.
There is also a nice indoor area with tons of train paraphernalia, a large working model train set and full size train engine replica that kids can play in.
Nice staff, and a nice gift shop with all your Thomas the train needs.
Thanks for making my boys happy!

We visited the museum for their Thomas the Train event. I’m giving them three stars because the kids loved it, but I really think it was a ripe off. The loop is short and the rest of the stations for the kids were a little lame and haphazardly put together. You are encouraged to bring your kids to each station so they can get a piece of paper stamped for a prize at the end… a toy that maybe cost them 5 cents. Overall for the cost, I don’t think it was worth it. There are way more kid activities in the Denver Metro area that are better and more economical.

If I could give this place a negative review I would! We booked tickets for the Polar Express ride months and months ago. My 4 and 7 year olds have been so excited. Today they decided to cancel ALL runs of the train. Can you imagine what it’s like driving home from Golden with hysterically crying children who have been looking forward to this for weeks?
The worst part is that we were NOT advised in advance, we «might» get a refund or I might have to dispute charges. What is more, they managed to add extra runs last week but refuse to do ANYTHING to accommodate our family on another day/​time or add runs to accommodate.
We have done this in Durango previous years and I can guarantee that we will be going back there. This is a very unprofessional and unreliable operation. If it is important to your family, do NOT trust them, go elsewhere.
UPDATE: It is almost 1 month later and they have still NOT issued a refund for the service they chose not to provide — without any apology. I will be filing a claim with my bank, but it’s a huge hassle — beware.

My mother, my 5 year old son, and I visited for the first time tonight for the Polar Express. I cannot say enough nice things. I teared up a few times because of how special the entire staff made the night for my son (and my mom and me!). It was beyond my expectations. Thank you for bringing the magic to Christmas! It will be a memory that will stick with my son through his entire life and, I’m sure, he will bring his kids in 30 years. THANK YOU!

Dissatisfied with our visit. We planned our visit specifically to attend the Halloween activities. First of all, for what we paid, we didn’t feel we got our money’s worth. The train ride was lame. Our grandchildren did collect a total of 5 pieces of candy. For the 40.00 we spent, we could have done more, elsewhere, for less money. There really wasn’t a lot of activities for kids to do. My grandkids enjoyed the model trains; other than that, they lost interest quickly. If the admission had been more reasonable, I wouldn’t be complaining. Next year, we will stick to malls and school carnivals.

A bit of a disappointment.
The property includes a substantial collection of mostly narrow gauge railroad equipment, but a lot of the equipment is in storage on the back tracks and only a small number of the passenger cars and locomotives are open so you can look inside.
On a more positive note, they have two very nice model railroad layouts, one inside and one outside.
Its wonderful that they have preserved so much historic railroad equipment but they need to find a better way to present it to museum visitors. Their collection is unique but I’m sorry to report that there are far better railroad museums in the U.S.
Important Note:
If you want to see an operating steam locomotive you must visit on a Saturday. This is the only day of the week when they have an operating steam engine.

We took the children from my child care center to the museum today and will never go back. It was the worst field trip we have been on. When I book the field trip I was told they like a one staff member to five children ratio, but did not tell me it was required. When got to the museum and we had 17 children and only 2 staff. The lady at the register told me my group would not be able to go into the museum unless we got another staff member. I asked if there was someone else to ask and she said she would be the one to talk too. I also payed with a check and was questioned about the check.
So I called the center for another staff member, but it would talk them 30 minutes to get to the museum. I asked if there was somewhere to eat our lunches until our staff person gets there. She told me we could go out and sit at the picnic tables, but the children could not get up or we would have to leave. We went to the picnic tables and they were in the blazing sun (90 degrees plus). So we sat under a tree in the shade, hoping we would not get sent home.
Once our 3^rd staff member got there we were about to go see the trains. There was very few trains open for the children to see, not much shade outside. The only water is inside, the children complained the whole time. They only good thing was the building were they work on the trains. There was a gentleman walking by and took his time to explain to the kids what the do there.
Then before we were going to leave there was a large group of children getting ready to come in the museum and I overheard the staff tell the children they were out of ratio for the field trip and the children would have to be on their best behavior. There were 6 staff with well over 40 children. When I went inside to talk with the lady who told me to get another staff member or we would have to leave she told me she call her manager and she authorized the group. She told me that each group were different. This group of children were disrespectful to other patrons. One lady carring a baby in a car seat asked the children several times to let her pass them so she could get through the line by the drinking fountain. Another lady came up to me to complain about the number of children I the bathroom. I let the lady know they were not my children. The other child also walked up to the front of the line at the drinking fountain. There staff did nothing. Maybe they should have had more staff.

It has quite a few different locomotives and various other railroad cars. It’s really pretty interesting to check them out, like the huge snow-​blower locomotive. Lots of historic artifacts, like an old arch that was moved there. The gift shop has a nice selection of items. Downstairs is one of the most amazing model trails — it is huge and intricately detailed. They were also doing a demonstration on railroad construction. Probably good to avoid on free days as it is over-​crowded.

This place was not fun, i took the 3 year old i nanny to this place and it was rather disappointing. I do realize i went during the week and knew that the train ride wasnt an option (which it should be an option at least once or twice during the week for babysitters, nannies, grandparents and the occasional class trip perhaps) the grounds are in poor shape with litter scattered about and its rather «earthy» with no direction or paths except over by the miniature rail road track which disappointingly wasn’t open either. out of all the trains on site you could only go into about 5 and 2 of which were locked and reserved for a private party? The trains you could go in smelled and a couple trains had mannequins in them which scared the living shit out of me on top of the creepy old timey music they have playing and nearly deserted museum which is basically an old rail yard. Nothing special here.

We went for «A Day Out With Thomas». I’m actually curious to go back when there isn’t an event going on. Anyway I’ve never seen a better example of successful crowd control in Colorado. The shuttles ran like clockwork, lines moved swiftly, everyone was pleasant. The kids had a ball! The thing that boggled my mind, however, was it was inexpensive!

The snow has been melting so the grounds were very muddy, but other than that it was very good. We came in the free open day, not sure how much it normally cost but it was great for a free day out.

Little did we know when we came today that it would be trick or treat time with a slew of wee littles and their families. It was cute to see all of the costumes. It was a little distracting to have bad Halloween music and sugar highs crashing all around. The good thing was they were running the train all day today which normally doesn’t happen on a Sunday.
We got to ride the train and get a nice lay of the land. There was a train that wasn’t moving that offered some educational insights as in where the train workers used to sleep, what a kitchen looked like, etc.
It’s a cool space especially for train buffs.

Brought my kids here for Thomas the tank. They had free shuttlea from parking lots down the road.
Once on the property it was great. Had lots to do, pretty much every train or locomotive was open to go inside. They had food trucks this day.
Sir Topem hat was there for pictures. Riding on Thomas the conductors were full of history.
One of the volunteers on the train table, he was kind of a dick.
But otherwise this was a great experience.

Great place to go if you love trains both modern and old fashioned steam powered. Go on Saturday on they offer train rides!

This is THE place for Colorado rail history. In the collection is the oldest narrow gauge surviving locomotive, many passenger cars spanning the 20^th century of CO rail experience and 3 of the 6 surviving Rio Grande Southern Motors/​Galloping Geese.
The staff and docents are extremly knowledgable and helpful and you can go inside the replica roundhouse to watch the staff restoring and refurbishing older exhibits as well as new acquisitions.
The Denver HO model club is in the basement and outside is the Denver Garden RR club. Call and see when they are running!!!

I came here with my brother and nephew for A Day Out With Thomas to celebrate my nephew’s second birthday this last weekend. There was so much to do and so much fun stuff for little kids.
I think the price was a little steep, but I suppose some of that would go to the good cause of funding the museum, so I can’t squawk too much.
Like Courtney B. mentioned before, the train ride was fun for my nephew, but three laps of the same boring terrain in the hot sun was a little lackluster for adults.
Overall this is a pretty cool place. It sounded like they do a lot of special events, so it’s a neat place to take the kiddos to that’s maybe a little more wholesome and educational than some of the other entertainment options available.