railtown 1897 state historic park

This entire area is bustling with history. A great place to shop, have lunch and enjoy the sites. We rode the historic 1897 train and I could have stayed on forever! The people who work or volunteer here are extremely knowledgeable and are enjoying themselves as much as the visitors. A small museum holds lots of history. I will go back again and again!

Railtown 1897 is a working history museum. Portions of TV shows (Wild Wild West and Pettycoat Junction) and movies (Back To The Future) were filmed here. You can take a short train ride pulled by a 100+ year old steam locomotive. Take a tour of a working roundhouse and see historic equipment, including a steam locomotive, under going restoration. The tracks are also used by Sierra Railroad to haul forest products to market. The experience is far different from the California State Railroad Museum (CSRM) in Sacramento. CSRM was built from the ground up to be a museum. Railtown started life as a working railroad that was evolved into a working museum where you can experience, in a small way, what railroading was like over a century ago when railroading was the high tech means for transportation. Go experience Railtown 1897.

This year was the first year they did the Polar Express Train ride out of jamestown so we had to take the kids and go! We want eveveryone to know how wonderful the ride was not just for the kids but for all the adults as well! They put on quite a show. ..we enjoyed dancing,cookies and hot chocolate while listening to the Polar Express book, we traveled to the north pole and saw santa and his elves working...then he came on board and gave everyone a polar express bell like the one from the movie...and he was even able to be available after the ride to take pictures and listen to what the kiddos would like for christmas! We really had a wonderful time..all the staff were super nice, you could tell they really worked hard to make this special!

Having three kids it can be difficult to find affordable places to take them where they will be entertained, educated and are able to run around all at the same time. We got the 5 of us into the rail yard with a self-guided walking tour map for under $20 and it kept us occupied for about 2 hours.

I'm not one for trains but it was there and I dropped in - I was totally absorbed and spent a lot of time talking to the guide who was clearly passionate. Fantastic

We were able to get tickets for the opening day of the Polar Express. We went to the 6:00 experience, we wanted it to be dark. When we got to the Railway station, grandson is his PJ's, the first thing we see is a steam train and caboose, the steam engine was going and making great "steam" sounds. We were able to see both inside and out to my 5 year old grandsons delight. Everywhere you went there were docents sharing train history. You could visit the roundhouse where Santa was for your child to visit, a wonderful gift shop with old wooden floors and extremely clean bathrooms. We got there early for the second ride of the evening and were waiting in line for the train and one of the conductors was busy asking us if we had seen the "hobo". They made the wait fun. We had tickets for the first class parlor car. It was festively decorated, as were all of the cars and the staff was great fun. As we pulled out of the station to Christmas music and then "Hot Chocolate" was being played and dancing waitresses were delighting all of the children while hot chocolate and cookies were being served. My grandson was still on the lookout for the hobo and found her several times. She was really in character and made it so much. I don't want to spoil all of the fun, so I will stop here. But, the fun goes on!! This is well worth the price. I know it looks like it is sold out, but one of the ladies that works there told me that if you show up one of the days of the train ride early, there are people who turn in their tickets if they can't make it and they are able to sell those. There are no guarantees, but it is worth the try! We will be coming back next year, and it is well worth getting a train membership to get your tickets on the early sell dates before sales are open to the public!! We got our annual membership this summer and are able to visit both Sac train museum and this one for free (as many times as we want). The coach train rides are also free with membership. Fun, fun, fun!!

This great "living museum" is the perfect place to delve into the past. The docents were very convincing in their "character" dress and the way they imparted their knowledge of railroad history of the Gold Rush era. We felt very welcomed and appreciated as guests. We were able to ride on a "speeder" and climb into the antique railroad cars! Take the kids, but we old folds enjoyed it immensely as well!

Our family loves Railtown. Annually they have have a free ride for community and its fill with singing and lots of clapping.The Docents are wonderful and knowledgeable.I can't remember the date we went but it is advertised. And they only have snack foods unless you go on one of there is real train rides.They have a wonderful gift shop. Your family will enjoy Railtown

Railtown is an operational train station with a real turntable and lots of choo choos! We were just going to stop by and ended up spending over an hour wandering around the grounds and checking out the trains. Many movies have been made here and the park has done a nice job displaying relevant memorabilia. The grounds are beautiful too. The leaves on the trees were changing colors. I took lots of photos. Next time I plan to spend more time visiting Jamestown itself.

The best thing was being able to walk around leisurely before it even 'officially' opened. We talked with the machinists/ engineers starting work, and just had fun exploring on our own. The timeline of movies that the various engines have been in was really neat. Very fun experience.

I had a wonderful afternoon riding the train and listening to lots of interesting facts and stories, while enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. The trains, museum and roundhouse are beautifully kept and full of fascinating history. There is a reason that these trains and this location has been in so many films and television shows. It is truly unique. All of the volunteers that keep the park running are full of knowledge, enthusiasm, and a true love of what they do. This is a great spot for people of all ages!

After visiting Columbia State Park in the morning and having taken lunch at El Jardin, we proceeded to Jamestown, 3 miles south to Sonora. The Railtown 1897 State Park is basically a museum housing several steam locomotives, a blacksmithy shop and a maintenance workshop, rail coaches, a turn table for turning the face of a locomotive engine on the rails and water point for filling the engine with water. Seeing these heritage items with an interesting commentary delivered by senior citizen volunteers shall take you back to the era when railroads were being regularly regularly operated for transporting timber, marbles etc besides passengers by the Sierra Railways. Most engines are well preserved and a couple of them are even functional. However, since these engines are under a shed with insufficient light, photography was not so easy with my cell phone and I recommend visitors to use good flush assisted cameras. The adjoining blacksmithy and machine shops house tools of old times, such as anvils, 35 pounds heavy hammers,wheel press for forging and overhead belt-shaft driven lathe machines which were used for repairing the damaged spare parts/making new one and surprisingly these equipment are still functional without the use of electricity. During the last 100 years many of the rail roads and locomotives of this park have been filmed in Hollywood films and television serials, thereby also helping the park to sustain for such a long time despite closure of commercial transportation activities. In last ten years there have been several proposals by the California government to close this park along with many other state parks on economic grounds but the local people and history lovers resisted these attempts by providing necessary funding and the park is being well managed. The most interesting part of this museum, which is under renovation, is Hollywood section where techniques used by film producers to shoot sequences are on display along with photographs of old films. People can also have a 2hour tour in this historic railroad but as we were to leave for San Francisco, we could not experience the historic ride because,being Sunday (21st September 2014), there was a bit rush and tickets for that ride had also exhausted. I strongly recommend that people visiting Yosemite must visit this place as it fall on 49 and 120 routes.

Our son is into trains so being able to ride on the working locomotive that has been in so many tv show and movies is awesome. Tip: bring a picnic with you so you don't have to leave the park for lunch, there are cold drinks at the museum store.

We visited mid week and drove passed it as it was so quite we weren't show if it was open . There was only about 9 or 10 people at the station. The tour guide was very knowledgeable but really it is for steam enthusiasts. Unlike UK steam train attractions the three engines on show are all painted black, nearly all the exhibits are black. Only one carriage to look at and walk through. The film shows were interesting but there was no were to get a hot drink, only cold cans. The shop was well stocked with toys, books and souvenirs. I think it would have been more interesting if the trains were steaming and rolling.

Definitely take the guided tour. If you are not interested in old trains before you visit, you will be afterwards!