Railroad Museum of Long Island facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Railroad Museum of Long Island
The former Nassau-Suffolk Lumber Company, now the RMLI Riverhead location.
Locale	Suffolk County, NY
Commercial operations
Built by	Railroad Museum of Long Island Members & Engine 39 Committee
Preservation history
1990	Founded

The Railroad Museum of Long Island is a cool place to learn about trains! It's a railway museum located on the North Fork of Long Island, New York. The museum has two main spots. One is in Riverhead. The other is a smaller location in Greenport. Both places have awesome model train displays and gift shops.

Explore the Riverhead Museum

The main part of the museum is in Riverhead. It's inside an old building that used to be a lumber company. This spot has a long history with trains. From 1891 to 1969, it was a busy train yard. It had a special spinning platform called a turntable for turning trains around.

See Real Train Cars

At the Riverhead location, you can see many old passenger and freight train cars. There are also big locomotives. Some of these trains are very rare. They are the last of their kind!

Ride the World's Fair Train

You can also find a special riding train here. It's a 16-inch wide train from the 1964 New York World's Fair. This fun train was part of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) exhibit at the fair. It's a great way to experience a piece of history!

Discover the Lionel Model Trains

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 by Lionel L.L.C. in 2009.

The layout is very big, measuring 14 feet by 40 feet. It's based on a Lionel Showroom Layout from New York City in the 1940s. Lionel employees built it in 1992. It was on display at Lionel's facilities until 2008.

Visit the Greenport Site

The Greenport museum site is in an old freight house. This building was built in 1892 for the LIRR. A freight house is where goods were loaded and unloaded from trains.

Learn About Greenport's History

Over the years, this freight house was used for many things. It was a branch of the United States Post Office. It also served as a storage place for LIRR buses.

Today, you can see a restored 1927 LIRR wooden caboose here. 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 built this snowplow themselves! You can also find old photos and other items about LIRR history.

Images for kids

• 

  Preserved cars next to the LIRR tracks at Riverhead.

• 

  Part of a preserved turntable.

• 

  The World's Fair riding train.

• 

  Closeup of the locomotive of the riding train.

• 

  The former Greenport Station Freight House, now the Greenport RMLI location, shown in July 2007.

• 

  The same freight house along Fourth Street in September 2015.

• 

  Part of the other preserved turntable.