California State Railroad Museum

Tuesday while on my way to San Rafael, CA from Sparks, NV I stopped in Sacramento to visit this museum.  This very large facility, which exhibits mostly full-size train engines and cars, is located right next to “Old Sacramento”.

Outside there was a small roundtable, which an engine can be “driven” onto and then mechanically turned around to reverse direction.  There was a full-size roundhouse (a roundtable surrounded by a building with little “garages” for trains to be kept in for maintenance) at a museum in Jamestown CA, just south of Sonora, which I tried to go to while I was there a short while back but they had stopped giving tours for the day (2 1/2 hours early!) and I wouldn’t have been able to see it so I didn’t pay to go in.  I did see one in Durango CO last year when I rode the Durango & Silverton Scenic Railroad.

Oops.  Looks like someone zigged when they should have zagged…

 

There was a display of small models of very fast trains currently being used in various foreign countries (China, Japan, Korea, Italy and France):

Upstairs there was an area displaying toy trains, train memorabilia and model trains set up as a large village.

And a place for kids to play…

… while the “big kids” watched their young’uns burn off some energy: