Nevada State Railroad Museum - Carson City

 I had planned to spend last week exploring as many local parks as we could find, but the weather wasn't terribly cooperative. We woke up to a gray rainy day and grumpy kids and NEEDED out of the house. In desperation I put everyone in the car and headed to the Nevada State Railroad Museum. I had no idea if this was going to be a kid-friendly location, but it was inside and not too expensive, so we went for it. Now we can't wait for the weekend to go back and take Daddy with us!

I LOVED the price to get in. Kids are FREE, and you just can't get any better than that! After paying and getting our "tickets", we headed into the museum. To the left of the ticket desk are all the displays, to the right are the bathrooms/drinking fountain ad gift shop (and an alternate route through the displays). The kids were instantly wowed by everything in front of them. There was a lot of great interpretive material all about the history of Nevada railroads, but the kids were so excited to see everything I didn't get to do much reading. It did look fascinating though!

I have to apologize right now for the pictures in this post. My camera really hates low-light environments, and the lighting in here is not the greatest. 

 Almost as soon as you walked into the museum there was the first of several kid-friendly interactive displays. The very first one was a chance to lay some rails, including the extra challenge of splicing together two pieces of rail. My kids didn't notice this until I pointed it out, but once they saw it they were hooked for quite a while. Even the 2-year-old gave it a good try.

There are some really beautiful train cars in here, one of them you can even go inside and check it out. It was beautiful, and so fun to imagine traveling like that!

 The next play display was of a cute little train engine the kids can climb in and go to town on all the levers and knobs, and even ring the bell.

 Right next to the play train was a train table with all kinds of fun tracks and vehicles. This thing alone would have kept my kids busy for forever!

 The museum is actually housed in two buildings. Before we headed over to building #2, we had to stop by the restrooms and gift shop. Good news, there is a changing station in the women's room! The gift shop had so many fun things in it, my kids were so sad when I refused to by them all the great train toys and books in there.

 The second building is more of a shop than a museum. In fact, most of the building is not open to the public and we could hear people working on things on the other side. There was a wonderful volunteer who showed us around and told us all about all the great items stashed away in the dark corners of the building. There is yet another train car you can walk through as well.

 It's kind of crazy to see the size of all the tools and other items associated with the trains. You know they're big, but to see them in person makes it so much more real.

 Outside the second building (weather permitting) you have the chance to go for a ride on a handcar at no additional cost. We had actually taken a ride on this same car out at Washoe Lake the weekend before, but the kids were ecstatic to have a chance to do it again!

This picture is actually from our ride at the lake, I didn't have anyone around to snap one of us at the museum. 

After we'd seen all there was to see at the museum, we left one of our rocks out front and decided to walk around and see what else was nearby. There is a small dog park, as well as a small park (with picnic tables, bathrooms, and drinking fountains) for people as well. :) On the other side of the park is the local Chamber of Commerce office, so if you want to check out other fun opportunities in the area that might be worth a quick visit. Across the street from the CC office is the Wabuska Depot, where you can come for a ride on a historic steam train or motorcar.

Essential Details:
Nevada State Railroad Museum
2180 S Carson St, Carson City, NV 89701
Website
Admission: $6 per adult, kids (18 and under) are FREE