When I visited Colorado for my grandson's second birthday in December, 2010 we visited one of his favorite places: the Colorado Railroad Museum, located at 17155 West 44th Avenue, Golden, Colorado.
The Museum building is a replica of a 1880s-style depot. It houses thousands of rare old photographs, artifacts and documents illustrating the colorful histories of the railroads which have served the state for over 125 years.
The Museum is located on 15 acres at a point where Clear Creek flows between North and South Table Mountains. The museum's emphasis is on the Rocky Mountain area railroads, and to explain and interpret the role of railroads in the history of this region from the 1860’s to the present by means of exhibits, a library and special events. The museum also has the Robert W. Richardson Railroad Library on the grounds which houses over 10,000 books specific to railroads.
There is an opportunity to climb aboard many of the railroad cars. Here my husband, son and grandson are posing for my camera on a 1890 Denver and Rio Grande Locomotive.
There were many interesting and historic railroad cars to visit.
Many had informational placards telling of their history. All photos can be clicked on once and then again when they open on a new page to make them larger to see details.
A streamliner era locomotive - the "Rio Grande Zephyr"
One of the "Snow Fighters" Locomotives
A collage of some other trains on display.
On "Steam-Up" Operating Days, an historic narrow gauge passenger train powered by a steam or diesel locomotive will run at approximately 20-minute intervals. In the video above my son and grandson are watching the train make a pass before we all went on it for a ride.
The day we visited the Colorado Railroad Museum Santa and Mrs Claus were there to greet the children, but my grandson was happier to see the Railroad Engineer Dog and give him a "high five"!
The Denver Garden Railway Society has its G-scale, garden railway exhibit on the grounds of the Museum. My grandson was especially happy to see "Thomas the Train" make its rounds on the tracks.
It will come as no surprise to show what the special birthday cake my son and daughter-in-law made for L's second birthday -- a railroad train! I bought a Williams Sonoma railway cake pan for the occasion. They did a great job decorating it!
L was very happy to eat his cake and proclaimed it: "Delicious!" It really was! It was the end to a perfect second birthday for our little train loving grandson.
I'm adding this post to "Outdoor Wednesday" over at Susan's blog A Southern Daydreamer.
