Greeley Freight Station Museum

David, Silas & Amelie in front of part of the train diorama.

"Nasty Flats" (Wouldn't you love to live in a town with a name like that?)

"Kindly flush toilet after each use except when train is standing in station."

"Train Men Only" (or train kids, in our case)

This morning we enjoyed the Greeley Freight Station Museum, located across the road from the old train depot here in Greeley, Colorado. Inside a warehouse style metal building is the largest HO-scale train set we have ever seen. The track is set up as a portion of the Oregon, California and Eastern Railway Company (OC & E), so there are mountains, rivers, lakes, trestles, a snow shed (with over 1,700 hand-installed wood pieces), boats, cities, small towns, industrial areas, mines, etc. to take in while watching the trains. We even got to "start" a forest fire. Inside was also caboose 10583- the last operational wood caboose on the Colorado and Southern railroad. There were also many railroad relics, including various lamps, sleeping car towels, old time tables, and other railroad paraphernalia (including Frank Griswold- an extremely rare traffic signal that they turn on when a train goes by on the tracks outside the building). Much to the delight of Silas and Amelie, they also had a kids area with buttons to operate various lights, characters, and trains. To their disappointment, though, the scale models of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends were not working. Despite that, we all enjoyed the museum immensely. (The volunteers probably enjoy it even more- there were quite a few grown men wandering about with headsets and train remotes, each responsible for a train.)