Travel Town brings full-size railway history into Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. Established in 1952, the museum preserves locomotives, passenger cars and freight vehicles in an outdoor setting that has introduced generations of visitors to historic trains. Its location makes it an accessible urban collection, but the equipment also provides a serious opportunity to compare the different kinds of machinery that supported rail transportation in California and the wider West.
The museum’s creation belongs to an important moment in preservation history. As steam locomotives disappeared from everyday service, examples that once seemed ordinary faced scrapping. Public collections such as Travel Town gave some of them a future as historical objects. The institution’s early history is associated with Charley Atkins, whose efforts helped establish a railway legacy that outlived the machines’ original working careers.
The outdoor collection shows more than one kind of railway job. Locomotives can be considered alongside the cars they moved, making it easier to distinguish passenger service, freight movement and specialized work. The museum’s documentary and interpretive material adds context to objects that can otherwise be appreciated only for their size. Comparing the vehicles is more revealing than assuming that every old engine performed the same task.
A particularly useful indoor interpretation concerns Fred Harvey and the hospitality system serving western railway travelers. The exhibit connects trains with restaurants, hotels, newsstands and dining-car service. It also introduces the Harvey Girls, whose work became closely associated with the company’s reputation. This is a reminder that a railway journey required food, accommodation and staff as well as track and locomotives, and that tourism helped shape the image of the Southwest.
Look for the relationship between the large outdoor machines and these smaller human stories. Travel Town is owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles, with foundation support for preservation and education. The separate recreational train ride around the grounds should not be confused with operation of the historic full-size equipment displayed in the collection.
Visitor information
Researched November 2026.
Sources
More railroad museums in California
- California State Railroad Museum — Sacramento: Major railroad museum
- Fullerton Train Museum — Fullerton: Passenger-car and railroad collection
- Golden Gate Railroad Museum — Schellville: Locomotive and passenger-equipment preservation collection
- Laws Railroad Museum — Bishop: Railroad and local history museum
- Lomita Railroad Museum — Lomita: Railroad museum
- Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum — Nevada City: Narrow-gauge railroad museum
- Niles Canyon Railway / Pacific Locomotive Association — Sunol: Operating railroad preservation collection
- Niles Depot Museum — Fremont: Depot and railroad history museum
- All 19 railroad museums and sites in California
Keep exploring
- All heritage sites — museums, stations and landmarks
- Pacific — the trains you can ride in the region