Western Railroad Discussion > I went to the Galveston Railroad Museum

Last week the lovely Mrs Murphy and I went to Galveston, spent time at the beach
and generally goofed around about town and left just before the Memorial Day rush.

Galveston is an Island, accessible from I-45 via bridge from the north and ferry from the east.
It is not on the way to anywhere other than the beach and cruise ship terminal.  It has been many 
years since I have visited, and the beach and city were quite clean and the water was perfect for
swimming.  There was no wind on the two days we visited the beach and consequently no waves.
When I was a kid (Dallas) we often spent a week in Galveston for summer vacation and have nice
memories of that, although we stayed in crummy hotels then and have upped our game since.

Galveston was the headquarters of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, the Texas arm of the corporate
owner ATSF, and the HQ building (pic 2) is used as a office building today with the first floor waiting room
anchoring the museum.  It was almost razed in the 70's but was saved by a local philanthropist.

Causing angst among railfans (but not me), the two Santa FeF units never belonged to the road and 
was painted as seen in pic 3 as eye candy for museum visitors.

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The ticket windows and waiting room is pretty much in tact, with displays scattered across the room.

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The Galveston, Houston & Henderson ran from Houston to Galveston and was owned jointly
by the MOP and MKT.  There was a interurban running between the two cities and the Santa Fe 
bypassed Houston and came towards the island from the northwest.  All these roads and auto
roadway shared a causeway to the island and later a highway bridge was added for the increases
highway traffic.


Train board shows normal activity from 1904

Dispatchers panel of the line from Houston to Galveston

Camera shy Mrs Murphy shuns the EMD control stand display.

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There are numerous rail cars one can walk-through, here is a dining car and RPO.

Other cars include coaches, sleepers, baggage cars, and cabooses, both old and newer types.

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Here is one of three or four tank cars.  The coastal area around Galveston is surrounded
by refineries and chemical plants, so tank cars were a major feature on the rails here.

There are also a number of cabooses, wood and steel types.  There is a MOP transfer caboose
that one can ride in behind a small GE centercab diesel, not running in our visit day.

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Lots of signal displays, including an operating wig-wag and semaphore, and this timing relay box.

I spent about 5 minutes behind this simulator, operating a fake P42 across fake Colorado landscape.

Another outdoor display, nicely executed.

For a quick summertime getaway, Galveston is a nice retreat.  It was a 4 hour drive from my Tyler home.
It isn't a wonderful Florida type beach, but it wasn't busy or crowded either, though weekends are
quite different now that school is out, and the museum isn't on your way to anywhere other than this
island getaway, but it's a great effort, and even the agnostic railfan I travel with enjoyed it.

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Looks like the museum has made a succesful recovery from the flooding they experienced from a Hurricane some years ago. 
Gonut

Looks like a nice place

Remember seeing the place almost 20 years ago under 4-5 ft of sea water after Hurricane Ike. 

Looks like they recovered wonderfully!

Great work.  

Chuck

Thanks for sharing your shots!!!

Great lok museum, thanks Bob

 

Thanks for sharing these.  Someday I hope to make it down there to view their collection and specifically look at their Rio Grande flat car with the block of marble on it.

Jim Barton

WrongWayMurphy Wrote:
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> The ticket windows and waiting room is pretty much
> in tact, with displays scattered across the room.

Hey, look at that! Phones in cells. What will they think of next?

TAW