The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
A heritage railway or heritage railroad is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport.
The Minnesota Transportation Museum is a transportation museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States.
Heritage streetcars or heritage trams are a part of the efforts to preserve rail transit heritage. In addition to preserving street-running rail vehicles, heritage streetcar operations can include upkeep of historic rail infrastructure. Working heritage streetcars are closely related to the growing global heritage railway movement and form a part of the living history of rail transport.
Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's first and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is trolley cars (trams), it also includes rapid transit trains, Interurban cars, trolley buses, and motor buses. The Seashore Trolley Museum is owned and operated by the New England Electric Railway Historical Society (NEERHS). Of the museum's collection of more than 350 vehicles, ten trolley and railroad cars that historically operated in Maine were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as Maine Trolley Cars.
The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, often abbreviated as the C&TSRR, is a 3 ft narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates on 64 miles (103 km) of track between Antonito, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, in the United States. The railroad is named for two geographical features along the route: the 10,015-foot (3,053 m)-high Cumbres Pass and the Toltec Gorge. Originally part of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad's narrow-gauge network, the line has been jointly owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico since 1970. Today, the C&TSRR is one of only two remaining parts of the former D&RGW narrow-gauge network, the other being the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG), which runs between the communities of Durango and Silverton, Colorado. The railroad has a total of ten narrow-gauge steam locomotives and two narrow-gauge diesel locomotives on its current roster. The railroad also operates two smaller former D&RGW steam locomotives, Nos. 315 and 168, for special events and excursions.
Old Pueblo Trolley is a non-profit, educational corporation based in Tucson, in the U.S. state of Arizona, that is dedicated to the preservation of Arizona's mass transit history. The name also commonly refers to the heritage streetcar line which OPT began operating in 1993, on which service is currently indefinitely suspended. OPT consists of three divisions that each fill a specific role in preserving the state's mass transit history. The divisions are the Street Railway Division, Motor Bus Division and the Museum Division.
The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, often abbreviated as the D&SNG, is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates on 45.2 mi (72.7 km) of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally-designated National Historic Landmark and was also designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1968.
The Ghost Town & Calico Railway is a 3 ft narrow-gauge heritage railroad and amusement park attraction within Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park located in Buena Park, California.
The Fort Collins Municipal Railway operated streetcars in Fort Collins, Colorado, from 1919 until 1951. Since 1984, a section of one of the former routes has been in operation as a seasonal heritage streetcar service, under the same name, running primarily on Spring and Summer weekends. The heritage service is operated by volunteers from the Fort Collins Municipal Railway Society (FCMRS). The streetcar in use on the heritage line, Birney "Safety" Streetcar No. 21, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Trolley Museum of New York, a non-profit organization, is located at 89 East Strand Street, Kingston, New York. The museum is open to the public on a seasonal schedule, but volunteer activities relating to the preservation of historic transit are year-round.
The Fort Smith Trolley Museum is a streetcar and railroad museum in Fort Smith, in the U.S. state of Arkansas, which includes an operating heritage streetcar line. The museum opened in 1985, and operation of its streetcar line began in 1991. Four vehicles in its collection, a streetcar and three steam locomotives, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The now approximately three-quarters-mile-long (1.2 km) streetcar line also passes four NRHP-listed sites, including the Fort Smith National Historic Site, the Fort Smith National Cemetery, the West Garrison Avenue Historic District and the 1907 Atkinson-Williams Warehouse Building, which now houses the Fort Smith Museum of History.
Streetcars or trolley(car)s were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation.
Established in 1982, the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation (CTRC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to preserve rail transportation in the Santa Clara Valley.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western K-37 is a class of 2-8-2 "Mikado" type narrow-gauge steam locomotives built for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. They were new steam locomotives built in the D&RGW Burnham Shops as a near copy of the Rio Grande class K-36. In-house production was chosen to preemptively address material shortages and personnel issues. Burnham Shops was assisted in the construction of the class by the Stearn-Rogers Manufacturing Company. The class recycled components from Baldwin Locomotive Works-built Class 19 2-8-0 locomotives used on the Rio Grande's standard gauge; re-using the boiler, tender and other components salvaged from the C-41's. The engine components were constructed new for the locomotive class.
Denver and Rio Grande Western No. 315 is a class "C-18" 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type narrow-gauge steam locomotive that was originally built for the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1895. It was purchased by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) in 1917 and later became known as No. 315. It was retired in 1949 and had been on display at City of Durango parks until the Durango Railroad Historical Society restored the locomotive from 2001 to August 2007. It was operational from then until September 2021. On March 8, 2023, it has returned to service, following its FRA federally mandated 1,472-day boiler inspection and overhaul. Most "sister" locomotives to No. 315 were scrapped, but two others survive today: D&RGW No. 318, on display at the Colorado Railroad Museum; and F&CC No. 10, currently in storage at the Nevada Southern Railroad Museum.
The Tramway Historical Society Inc. is located at the Ferrymead Heritage Park in the Christchurch, New Zealand suburb of Ferrymead and operates the standard gauge Ferrymead Tramway. Trams have operated at Ferrymead since 1968, with progressive extensions built between 1970 and 1984 allowing trams to operate within the boundaries of the Heritage Park. The Society also operates and own a collection of historic trolley buses and diesel buses.
The Southern California Railway Museum, formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving to the former Pinacate Station as the "Orange Empire Trolley Museum" in 1958. It was renamed "Orange Empire Railway Museum" in 1975 after merging with a museum then known as the California Southern Railroad Museum, and adopted its current name in 2019. The museum also operates a heritage railroad on the museum grounds.
