Danbury Railway Museum

If you are looking for a fun place in Connecticut to go with your family, look no further than the Danbury Railway Museum! As its name suggests, it focuses on the history of railroading in southern New England and neighboring New York. In this post, I will be discussing its history, as well as all the different things you can see and do there.

The museum itself is located in the old Union Station in Danbury, which was built in 1903 by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad in response to local pressure for a new station after the three railroads that served the city were merged into the New Haven. During the station’s peak, 125 trains would stop there in one day, but during the 1990s, after Danbury’s lucrative hat industry had long gone, it had dwindled down to only a few commuter trains. The station itself had also become so dilapidated that Metro North was only using the ticket office portion of the building that was 90 years old and crumbling. At the same time, the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which owned the building, closed it in favor of a newer station on the other side of the block. The mayor of Danbury at the time, Gene Eriquez, did not want to see another old building in downtown lost to urban blight, and he and others felt that the station was the perfect place for a rail museum, and it was formed in 1994 by a group of National Railway Historical Society and local railfans. 

The museum itself today has a large collection of railroad artifacts and objects. These include railroad lanterns, china and silverware, timetables, tools, historic photographs, uniforms, telegrams, and model trains. One of the model train layouts shows what the Danbury Railyard looked like in the 1950s, and some of the layouts also have buttons to press that will activate the trains. 

Right outside the station and across the tracks is the Danbury Railyard. It has 15 tracks, 10 acres, and over 75 pieces of railroad rolling stock and locomotives. These include 14 locomotives, 13 of which are diesel locomotives, and one of which is a steam locomotive. There are also eight cabooses on display, ten self-propelled cars, which are the types of vehicles we see at train stations today, 14 passenger cars, 21 different types of freight cars, which include flat cars, hopper cars, a mechanical refrigerator car, tank cars, boxcars, and gondola cars. There is also maintenance equipment on display here, which includes three track speeders, a burro crane, a rail flaw detection High-Railer, a double-ended crane, a ballast regulator, a 15-ton scale test car, and another rail flaw detection car. 

Another building on display is the old Mill Plain Station, which was built in 1881 by the New York & New England Railroad for their line extension to the Hudson River. It stayed in use until the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad ended passenger service on the line around 1928, and from there, it was relocated to the corner of the Danbury-Brewster state road and the road to Ridgebury to be used as a residence by Danbury dog warden Jeremiah J. Coffey, and it was later repurposed as the Best Round Golf Car Repair shop. A few years ago, the building was donated to the museum where it is currently being reassembled, but the purpose it will serve has not been decided yet. 

There is also a turntable in the yard that was resurrected in the early 2000s after nearly 20 years of neglect. It has been used to turn their equipment, access the original roundhouse site, and provide visitors with the unique experience of riding on one of these structures. In 2018, they began a total rehabilitation of the bridge deck on the turntable, and that project is currently 60% complete. 

There are also several opportunities for train rides in a day. Your choices of what to ride in include four different types of cabooses, five different types of passenger cars, or even the cabs of three different types of locomotives. For people above the age of 18 years old, they also have the chance to live out their dreams of being a locomotive engineer, by operating a vintage diesel locomotive under the supervision of one of their engineers, and they will even have their own chance to make their own freight train in the railyard.

There are also several events coming up at the museum. The first one is a photo shoot on August 24 to celebrate the museum’s 30th anniversary. The first part of this event will take place at 8:30 AM and will allow guests to take pictures of their locomotives and rolling stock, while the second part of this event starts at 7:15 PM and will allow guests to take pictures of their locomotives and rolling stock at night, and it will also feature staged flash lighted scenes with their equipment, period dressed actors, and vintage automobiles. There will also be some holiday specific events, such as one in October, which is a ride on a train called The Husking Bee that brings you to a pumpkin patch, one in November that is a short train ride in Danbury Yard with a read-along story on board, and one in December that consists of a ride on The Snow Clipper for the First Gift Express, and many other activities including a Letters to Santa coloring station, a meet-and-greet with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and hot chocolate with marshmallows and fresh baked cookies.

The museum is only open on weekends, so get your tickets ready, and go on a train ride through history!