The Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg grew from a collection that needed enough land for railway cars as well as room for historical records. The Reading Company Technical & Historical Society searched for a permanent home as its holdings expanded. In 2003 it acquired the nearly seven-acre former Pennsylvania Steel Company property. The industrial setting now accommodates vehicles and exhibits that trace the Reading’s role in the movement of people and goods.
Among the locomotives is Reading No. 5513, the first production example of General Motors’ GP30 diesel-electric design, according to the society. Its number and shape give visitors a specific object around which to follow the shift to diesel power. A diesel-electric locomotive uses an engine to generate electricity for motors that drive the wheels. The arrangement allowed manufacturers to develop standard locomotives that different railroads could buy and assign to a variety of jobs.
The museum’s collection also includes freight and passenger cars from the Reading system. Compare the fittings and proportions of vehicles designed to carry different loads or accommodate travelers. Freight equipment reveals the needs of industrial customers, while passenger stock shows how a company arranged space for people and their belongings. These cars help connect the Reading’s familiar name with the daily work that sustained it.
The replica station office presents that work at the level of a desk. A gate-arm telephone, records and other objects show how employees coordinated shipments and handled paperwork. The reconstruction gives some sense of what an early twentieth-century Reading office looked like and how people worked within it. The society’s changing exhibits also follow the end of the Reading in 1976 and what became of its routes. The yard and station office together give a view of the railroad at two scales, from the full-size machines that moved traffic to the small instruments that helped direct it.
Visitor information
Researched November 2026.
Sources
More railroad museums in Pennsylvania
- Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site — Gallitzin: Railroad engineering and transport historic site
- Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark — Altoona: Railroad engineering landmark and visitor site
- Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania — Strasburg: Major railroad museum
- Steamtown National Historic Site — Scranton: Major railroad museum and national historic site
- Colebrookdale Railroad — Preservation Collection — Boyertown: Operating railroad preservation collection
- East Broad Top Railroad & Friends’ Robertsdale Museum — Rockhill Furnace / Robertsdale: Narrow-gauge railroad museum and preservation collection
- Gallitzin Tunnels Park & Museum — Gallitzin: Railroad engineering site, caboose and community museum
- Harris Tower Railroad Museum — Harrisburg: Railroad signal-tower museum
- All 12 railroad museums and sites in Pennsylvania
Keep exploring
- All heritage sites — museums, stations and landmarks
- Northeast — the trains you can ride in the region