Railroad Museum of Long Island facts for kids
The Railroad Museum of Long Island's Riverhead location in 2024
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| Established | 1990 |
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| Location | Riverhead and Greenport Suffolk County, New York United States |
| Type | Railway museum |
| Founder | Railroad Museum of Long Island Members & Engine 39 Committee |
| Public transit access | Riverhead & Greenport stations, Long Island Rail Road |
The Railroad Museum of Long Island – also known as RMLI – is a cool place to learn about trains. It's located on the North Fork of Long Island, in Suffolk County, New York. The museum has two main spots: one in Riverhead and another in Greenport. Both locations have awesome model train displays and gift shops where you can find souvenirs.
Contents
Riverhead Location: A Look at Big Trains
The Riverhead part of the museum is in an old building. This building used to be a lumber company. It's right near the Riverhead Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) station. Long ago, from 1891 to 1969, this area had a special spinning track called a turntable. It also had a water tower and a pump house for trains.
What You Can See at Riverhead
This location has many rare passenger and freight cars. It also has big locomotives. Some of these trains are the very last of their kind! They are being fixed up so visitors can enjoy them.
You can also ride a special train here. It's a 16-inch wide track train from the 1964–65 New York World's Fair. This train was part of the LIRR display at the fair.
The Historic Lionel Layout
Inside the Freeman North Exhibit Hall, there's a huge model train display. It's called the Historic Lionel Layout. This "O" Gauge model train set was given to the museum in 2009. It's really big, about 14 feet by 40 feet!
The layout is based on a Lionel Showroom Layout from New York City in the 1940s. Workers at Lionel built this model train set in 1992. It was used at Lionel's buildings in Michigan until 2008.
Greenport Location: History in a Freight House
The Greenport RMLI site is in an old LIRR freight house. This building was built in 1892. Over the years, this freight house was used for different things. It was a post office branch and a storage place for LIRR buses.
Trains and Artifacts at Greenport
Today, the Greenport station has a restored wooden caboose from 1927. A caboose is a special car at the end of a freight train. There's also a 40-foot boxcar and a snowplow named "W-83 JAWS." The LIRR workers built this snowplow.
You can also see many old items and photos here. They all tell the story of the Long Island Rail Road.
Gallery
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Preserved cars next to the LIRR tracks at Riverhead.
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Part of a preserved turntable.
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The World's Fair riding train.
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Closeup of the locomotive of the riding train.
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The former Greenport Station Freight House, now the Greenport RMLI location, shown in July 2007.
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The same freight house along Fourth Street in September 2015.
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Part of the other preserved turntable.
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190th anniversary ceremony, held outside the museum in July 2024.
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See also
- Oyster Bay Railroad Museum
- New York Transit Museum
- History of the Long Island Rail Road
- Greenport station
- Riverhead station
