western pacific railroad museum

Very kid friendly and has lots of old trains to crawl on and for a fee drive. Also has a nice gift shop.

My family visited the museum for the annual Portola Railroad Days festival. The museum has a little of everything for train enthusiasts: models, restored trains, history displays and rides. The excursion rides sound the best. The historic town is also railroad themed. The annual parade had a variety of interesting entries such as a shootout and stagecoach. This museum is worth a visit.

This is a sleeper attraction . Wife and I are both train nuts and herd about this museum and the weekend train rides. Huge yard of rolling stock and engines from the past. The museum has agift shop , with lots of train goodies for young and old. The repair shop was buzzing with volunteers restoring a steam locomotive. The train ride was a 10 minute ride around the yard that was fun and you are able to see more of the rolling stock. Great place to take the kids and grand kids. Prices are very reasonable for admission and the train ride.

The museum and rail yard here are very nice. There are several trains in the rail yard to explore. You are greeted at the entrance by a huge locomotive with a snowplow. The museum is interesting and informative with lots to see and do. Very well done for a small town.

We had planned for several years to visit this museum, and the day we arrived there, much to our dismay, we found the gates padlocked. 3,000 miles and lined into a bumping post. It must have been our lucky day, because a couple of museum workers showed up to do some routine maintainence work, and they graciously let us in to roam the property.There is a wonderful array of equipment there, it's a sprawling 1:1 scale train set. Being a retired railroader, I really appreciated the various loco models and rolling stock which was displayed there, many of which I had operated during my career. It's well worth the trip, just double check their operating days before you go. I believe they said it was going to be closed Tuesdays, although the site showed open daily. We left a donation as a token of our gratitude, I'm so glad we had the chance to see everything after all that trip planning. The owner was out of town for the day, I had hoped to meet him, but perhaps another time.Two thumbs up for the Western Pacific Railroad Museum.

The kids will love this. Wander around at your leisure and be sure to take your camera. A real piece of history to experience.

This is a real fun place to go to. Between mid-April and mid-November they allow you to rent a locomotive and ride it for an hour with a qualified instructor along with you. My family and myself enjoyed this a lot and loved every minute of the ride. You have to book in advance. The museum itself is fabulous and the volunteers are the best, they give you a lot of information and interesting stories.

What is unique about this museum is that you can actually climb around on the trains!!! You really get a feel for what it's like to be in a working rail yard. Plus you can actually sign up to drive a locomotive! It's expensive, but definitely a thrill and worth it if you get a group of people together. (I think they allow 4 people to share.) We live in Portola, and have done this with special visitors. Everyone loves it. Even if you can't afford to drive the engine, it's still cool to be able to climb around in these huge machines. There aren't so many explanatory signs as at a more standard museum. There aren't any flashy electronic displays. This is a local operation run by volunteers. We have watched this museum since it opened, and these are people who are motivated wholly by the sheer love of trains. If you are a train nerd, this is definitely the place for you!

A volunteer crew of railroad lovers has for years been restoring all matter of locomotives and rail cars. You can walk around and through most all of them, talk with the volunteers, ride around the rail yard and on certain days, even operate a locomotive yourself (for a small charge). Don't miss the gift shop. Check ahead for hours of operation.

Weekday in July 2013, lots of old Western Pacific train cars and locomotives. We were the only two people there except one employee. A few more people showed up during the next couple of hours. Pretty much run by volunteers who are all getting older. I'm afraid train afficionados are becoming extinct. Great for a short visit. We stopped enroute from Reno to Mt. Lassen NP

The Railroad museum is a MUST especially if you have active kids. We went on a whim and were SO glad we did. It turned out to be the highlight of our road trip. Our kids (ages 9-12) LOVED exploring the numerous rail cars. We've been to a lot of museums, and they said it was their favorite - better even than the SF Exploratorium. We spent twice as much time there as planned because we all enjoyed it so much. Lots of climbing involved to explore the old cars, but so much fun! The family pass was a good deal for our family of six.

We visited the WPRRM and spent much of the day there. If you like trains or technology in general, you will love it. We climbed all over locomotives and other rolling stock--this isn't some prissy "don't touch the artifacts" museum. We also opted for a once in a lifetime experience--drove the museum's Western Pacific F7 locomotive. The engineer was really nice and interesting. We drove a 230,000#/1500 hp. locomotive back and forth 6-7 times over an hour. It was such a great experience. Places like this are a huge asset and deserve our support. The area itself is beautiful and it's not too far from Reno--less than an hour. I can't rate this place highly enough.

I visited the WPRM last summer with my grandson, we are both "train nuts", also visited the Williams loop, the Keddie Wye and the Clio trestle and had a grand time. The staff at the museum include active engineers who are exceedingly knowledgeable and were willing to answer my dumbest questions politely! They are a wealth of information!I was so glad to see the WP F-Units... And the wrecking crane! And UP had a wrecker parked on a siding nearby. So all in all, we had a great time!

This is a low key, small town event. It has been a part of our family's holiday traditions for years and I wouldn't miss it.

We showed up on a weekday morning in late August. There was exactly one car in the parking lot. When we went in, there was no one around even though we hollered several times. The gift shop was closed with a sign to leave the entry fee in the box. We knew there must be someone around because we could hear the diesel engine down on the balloon track running and occasional whistles from it. We wandered thru several of the rooms in the shed, but the exhibits were very poorly done. It all began to feel like a Fellini movie. About that time, a young man did appear coming from the sounds of the engine and apologized that they were short handed, but advised us to walk around. He then vanished somewhere. We went outside. I was a train nut in my youth, so it was sort of interesting to me, although almost none of the rolling stock even had a label on it to tell you anything about it. My wife just rolled her eyes. As we were about to leave, another person appeared between cars carrying coffee. He looked a little surprised to see us, but stayed and answered questions. He was a volunteer working on a project at the museum of repairing a caboose. They seem to be big on cabooses here. I did learn some interesting things from him and was surprised by his assertion that many of the locomotives were operational. He also explained the program whereby the train you to run an actual locomotive. This costs extra, although I don't recall the amount. After talking to him for about a half hour we left.My wife said she saw a third person, but I missed himI think it is unfortunate that more isn't done to make an actual museum out of this. At present it seems like Union Pacific is using it as a dumping ground for old rolling stock. The volunteer even told me one of the Century Series locos is still owned by UP and kept in reserve at the museum. In the museum's present form, I would only go if I was going to run the engines