Came across this from a link in the world of Transit Twitter.

The author appreciates the challenges, but believes more could be done to make our museums and tourist railways accessible via transit.

https://itineranturbanist.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/why-are-train-museums-not-transit-oriented/

Definitely not true of the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, the new light rail runs about 100' from their door (one of the few diamonds involving light rail and a freight railroad, Oregon Pacific, is in that area) with a stop just up the street:

"Why did we choose our site?

We are at the convergence of rail activity with easy access to mainline UP and shortline OPR.
OMSI District is projected to increase dramatically in tourist opportunities and cultural activities.
New Light Rail/Street Car/Bus Transit Center is projected to be one of the busiest in the TriMet system.
The new facility is the hub of rail activity – the Oregon Pacific (shortline) and Union Pacific (mainline) railroads, the Eastside Streetcar and Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail stations. With the completion of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail line, the Oregon Rail Heritage Center is surrounded by over a hundred years of rail activity."

Railway museums, and especially trolley museums, are a unique creature. While they general work at preserving elements of our urban culture and travel, the size of the artifacts and the fiances available to the founders have placed most of these museums in a rural environment.

This rural environment is away from the transportation found in our urban centers. Only when the urban sprawl reached out to the museum location has the opportunity of transit access has become a reality.

Prior to our move to adjacent facilities in 2009, and concurrent with local budget cuts, National Capital Trolley Museum enjoyed local bus service for 20 years. In 1992, we issued bus tokens to attendees at the Association of Railway Museums convention and used the scheduled bus service to shuttle guests between the conference hotel and the Museum. While we did not see a significant number of bus-Museum transfers over the years, our neighbors discovered a convenient kiss-and-ride facility.

Service ended when bus schedule changes required adding a third bus, or block to the route to extend service to the Glenmont subway station. This added to the base cost of their operation with no real demand for service. Previously the Museum was the eastern terminal for the route.

Wesley

This is something I've often pondered, especially when comparing our limited transit access here in America to that of the UK. I recall seeing photos/videos of tourist lines in England that would share a station with the national network. I love the idea of disembarking a modern passenger train and strolling across the platform to the tourist, steam-powered one.

Living in NY, I would definitely take either Amtrak or Metro North up to Old Saybrook in CT and transfer to the Essex Steam Train if such an option were available. It would certainly save me the headache of I-95!

What you have said it true. The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum is at Campo, 40 miles east of San Diego. There is ROW from San Diego, but the transit authority will not let them run into San Diego.

Here in California, there has been occasional bus service down State highway !2 past the Western Railway Museum.

And in Perris, the Southern California Railway Museum is building an electric connection with the commuter trains from Los Angeles.

The New York Transit Museum is in a subway station near Jay street in Brooklyn. It must have the best transit connection of any transit/railroad museum, anywhere.

The heritage street car lines like the F-Line in San Francisco have good transit connections; since they are a hybrid of transit and museum operations.

As a user of public transit; I wish more of them were reachable in public transit!

ted66

In the 36 years I have been visiting the US/Canada, I have managed to get to a few rail/trolley/automotive/air museums using Public Transit, but it isn't many.
Apart from "City" locations like the NY Subway Museum, Oregon Rail Heritage & Baltimore Streetcar Museum, the only ones I can think of are:-
Colorado RR Museum, Golden (RTD bus)
Danbury RR Museum (From Newark, NJ by PATH & Metro North trains)
Shore Line Trolley Museum (another one from Newark, NJ by PATH, Metro North Train, CT bus)
Pacific Bus Museum, Fremont, CA (from Millbrae via BART and walk...)
San Jose, CA Heritage Park & trolley museum (from Millbrae via Caltrain, VTA light rail and a long walk, though at least a Brewery tasting room visit broke the walk back to the Light Rail station!)
Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy (from Baltimore by MARC train, WMTA bus & some connecting local minibus service to the museum which was seriously overloaded with "foreign" visitors staying in DC!)
National Capital Trolley Museum (another from Baltimore by MARC train & two WMTA buses and a 20 minute walk from Layhill Road bus stop.., though one of the volunteers did kindly give me a ride back to Glenmont Metro station for the return trip)

Everything else has had to be by hire car, even if it has meant hiring one just for a few days to get to museums I particularly want to visit (ie Oregon Electric Railway Museum earlier this year - though that enabled me to visit 2 air museums as well). When I have a car for the full trip, I do manage to work out a route that cover the maximum number of attractions - which at least is possible in North America, unlike the German City tramway museums which generally open one day per month, and that is it!

One place I thought would have been served by local buses is Strasburg, PA, given the fairly comprehensive (by US standards) network of interurban services operated by Red Rose Transit in Lancaster. I have been impressed with their operation when I've ridden it and think that is a notable omission in their regional network - certainly viewed from my point of view after 34 years in the bus transit industry here in the UK.

Why has no one mentioned the B&O Railroad Museum, located on a couple bus routes and on a free (for now) Circulator loop from downtown?

Unfortunately, the rail station within a short-ish walk, Camden Station, only sees work-related rush hour commuter trains, but Light Rail can get you directly from BWI Airport to the right bus stop for a direct connection. Weekend service on MARC serves Penn Station, with not-as-direct connections (two rides minimum to get to the B&O Museum).

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum is, of course, only about a quarter-mile walk from Penn Station, numerous bus routes, and Light Rail via either Penn Station or Mount Royal.

There is intercity bus service to Scranton, Pa. for the Electric City Trolley Museum & Station and Steamtown. The bus terminal is so close that a transfer to the local bus lines isn't needed.

In reply to 70000's comment about bus service to the Strasburg RR and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, at one time there was service to downtown Strasburg by the predecessor to Red Rose Transit, but low ridership saw it discontinued. Theoretically, one could take the recently-instituted Route 21 bus that travels from Lancaster down Route 30 to Gap, disembarking at Paradise and taking the Strasburg train "in reverse" to visit the railroad and the museum.

A comment on what Bowmore said above: The Pacific Southwest RR Museum in Campo, CA is at MP 65.8 (from downtown San Diego) but 44 of those miles are in Mexico. The first 15 miles from downtown are used by the San Diego Trolley. FRA regulations prohibit trains and trolleys from operating on the same track at the same time. It is not the transit authority's lack of permission that PSRM's trains don't run to San Diego.

Secondly, there would be two crossings of the border involved to go from San Diego to Campo.

Third, for the last about 6 years there has been a collapsed tunnel on the Mexican part of the line.

Why did they choose Campo as a location? Where else in southern CA can acreage with rail access be purchased at a reasonable price?

To be clear, the former Court Street Station occupied by the New York Transit Museum hasn't seen revenue service since 1946 so you can't go there directly, but it is very close to several active subway stations including Jay Street-MetroTech and Hoyt-Schermerhorn, and within (somewhat longer) walking distance of the LIRR at Atlantic Terminal (Flatbush Avenue Terminal). It's definitely a transit-rich location.

-Philip Marshall

You could save the long walk by using the VTA #73 bus.

Also, I didn't see the California State Railroad museum in Sacramento mentioned as transit-accessible.

Nevada State RR Museum, Boulder City, has city bus service connecting us to Las Vegas a block away... current site planning includes a bike path thought our site... we already do rails and trails over a portion of our right of way, and that bike path includes a connection to the bus shelter.

But like others have said, so many of our museums have located where land was cheap... so are outside common transit routes...

Randy