Reasons We Love Kansas

Ellis Phillipsburg Abilene Topeka Carona Atchison

By Cecilia Harris

IN THIS ISSUE All Aboard!

During summer weekends, young visitors can ride the Atchison and Western Railroad train, a 12” gauge railroad train at the Atchison Rail Museum next to the historic Santa Fe Depot. The museum’s grounds also include a steam locomotive, a post and baggage car, a dining car and several cabooses.

The state’s only operating steam engine pulls the Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad excursion train as it takes visitors through farmland and scenic Smoky Hill River countryside between Abilene and Enterprise. A vintage diesel electric locomotive hauls the train on most runs, but the state’s only operating steam engine pulls the passenger train on designated weekends. Visitors can also explore a museum of train memorabilia and a model train in the historic Abilene depot and visit the Hoffman Grist Mill during the train’s layover in Enterprise. Special rides and dinner trains also are offered.

Five animated O-scale trains chug through a 57-foot-long model mountain range, wind through tunnels, travel past a waterfall and cross bridges at the quarter-mile miniature train track of the C&R Railroad Museum in Phillipsburg’s Huck Boyd Community Center. The display includes 94 engines, 170 cars, 34 cabooses, and 137 railroad lanterns in a room featuring special lighting for daytime and nighttime effects.

Two restored depots, railroad locomotives (including a steam engine), passenger cars, a refrigerated box car, a hopper car, and several cabooses line an outdoor pathway at the Heart of the Heartlands Museum Complex in Carona. The museum’s Rail Heritage and Education Center houses artifacts relating to regional railroad history, a collection of hand-carved wooden model steam locomotives, a library, and a media center. heartlandstrainclub.org | (620) 396-8594

Passengers can ride an approximately one-third scale model of the 1955 GM Aerotrain at the Ellis Railroad Museum and Doll Display. The Aerotrain’s outdoor tracks pass by a Union Pacific caboose and the restored Penokee, Kansas, depot. Inside the museum, visitors can see four model railroad displays, timetables, station signs, and other rail memorabilia, including photos of early Ellis, which was laid out by the Kansas Pacific in 1873 when it built a depot, crew hotel, and car shops.

Kids can enjoy a variety of hands-on exhibitions, including a train engine stimulator and a child-sized caboose at the beautifully restored former Union Pacific station. Costumed docents, interactive displays, historic photographs and exhibitions also introduce visitors of all ages to the area’s railroad heritage. parks.snco.us | (785) 251-6945