New Buffalo’s railroad history comes into focus in a photograph of workers posed beside a train around 1940. The museum identifies two of the men as Harvey Paddock and his son Russell. That family connection helps explain why many objects and photographs in the Harbor Country Museum of History + Rail came from local households. The people who worked in the yard were also the people whose families later helped preserve its story.
The museum opened in 1989 as the New Buffalo Railroad Museum, as part of redevelopment of former Pere Marquette roundhouse property. The nearby yard once connected northern Michigan trade with Chicago’s markets. The Pere Marquette merged with the Chesapeake & Ohio in 1947, and later corporate changes brought additional names into the story. The museum also traces the role of Michigan Central and Amtrak in the area. That range gives visitors a way to follow the community across several eras of railway ownership and service.
Among the railway artifacts are brakemen’s oil lanterns sometimes known as birdcages or bug torches. Examine their construction and consider the work they were meant to support. A worker needed a light that could be carried outdoors, used to see equipment and, where appropriate, used in signaling. The lanterns have a different scale from the roundhouse and yard, but each helps explain what happened during a shift. Archival photographs can supply faces and surroundings for the tools.
The museum’s broader Harbor Country name reflects its community history as well as its railway collection. Look for the connections between those subjects in photographs and objects contributed by area residents. A railway job could shape a family’s place in town for more than one generation, as the Paddocks’ photograph suggests. The compact space rewards a careful visit, especially if you take time to compare a worker’s small tools with the large site where they were used.
Visitor information
Researched November 2026.
Sources
More railroad museums in Michigan
- Alden Depot Museum — Alden: Depot and local history museum
- Clinton Northern Railway Museum — St Johns: Depot and railway-car collection
- Crossroads Village & Huckleberry Railroad — Flint: Living-history village with operating heritage railway
- Durand Union Station & Michigan Railroad History Museum — Durand: Historic station, museum and archives
- Saginaw Railway Museum — Saginaw: Depot and railroad history museum
- Southern Michigan Railroad Society — Clinton: Operating railroad museum
- Standish Historical Depot — Standish: Depot museum and welcome center
- Steam Railroading Institute — Owosso: Steam-locomotive preservation museum and operating collection
- All 11 railroad museums and sites in Michigan
Keep exploring
- All heritage sites — museums, stations and landmarks
- Midwest — the trains you can ride in the region