The National Railroad Museum in Green Bay

After we toured Lambeau Filed, we traveled about a mile to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay. We were very surprised to find that this was a first class museum and one of the best railroad museums we have been to (and Orinda will tell you that Rick has taken her to a bunch of them)!

First stop was this very cool model engine that Orinda was enthralled with. This is a model of the famous 20th Century Limited J3 locomotive on the New York Central. This whetted our appetite for the rest of the museum.

A very interesting exhibit showed the "drumheads" or logos of famous trains. These were back lit and beautiful such as this great Santa Fe Chief train. These were from the golden days of railroading.

There are several buildings housing exhibits, but the first building contained some spectacular locomotives. This one is an English locomotive of the type the made up Dwight Eisenhower's personal train while he was Supreme Commander for Allied Forces in WWII. There were also the actual rail cars used by Eisenhower during the war.

WOW! Rick is standing next to one of the very few Union Pacific "Big Boy"locomotives, which were the largest steam locomotive ever built. Weighing over 1 million pounds, and over 130' long, this is one BIG locomotive. Capable of hauling trains well over a mile long over the mountains, this is one of 25 ever built. It was great fun to see this rare locomotive and imagine the power it contained.

Not could Rick check out the exterior of the Big Boy, but he could get in and get the engineer's view of it. Look at all those valves and controls that had to be mastered to move this huge engine over the railroad.

There were many other great locomotives in this building, including this Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric powered locomotive. This powerful engine was built in the middle 1930's and the last GG1 was not retired until 1983! While this is a very large engine, it is interesting to note that it weighs about 1/3 of the Big Boy.

We moved to the very large exhibit area outside to see this early 1930's EMD 600 hp Diesel NW1 switcher. This engine is still in remarkable condition as are many of the engines in this collection. I will post additional pictures on the next post.