The Inland Northwest Rail Museum at Reardan preserves a remarkably varied cross-section of railway work. Its full-size collection ranges from a steam locomotive and early diesel power to passenger cars, freight equipment, railway post-office cars and heavy maintenance machinery. That breadth is the attraction’s real strength. Instead of telling the story through one celebrated train, the museum allows visitors to consider the different machines and working spaces needed to keep a regional railway network functioning.
Several familiar Northwest railroad names appear in the collection. The published roster includes Northern Pacific GP9 No. 317 and F9 No. 6703A, Great Northern SD9 locomotives Nos. 598 and 599, and equipment associated with the Spokane, Portland & Seattle. These different diesel types provide useful points of comparison. Look at the shape of the body, the position of the cab and the arrangement of outside walkways, then consider how visibility, access for maintenance and the intended job influenced each design.
Passenger equipment offers a different set of stories. The museum identifies a Union Pacific dining car, a sleeping car named American Scene and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle sleeper-buffet-lounge car Mount St. Helens, alongside coaches and baggage cars. Their names and functions evoke the long-distance passenger train as a small traveling service organization. Meals, sleeping accommodation, baggage and places to sit or socialize each required a distinct kind of vehicle. Railway post-office cars add the less familiar story of employees handling mail while the train was moving.
Some of the most revealing objects were never intended to carry ordinary passengers. A Northern Pacific 250-ton wrecking crane represents the heavy equipment needed when a railway had a serious problem to solve. A steam donkey and a compressed-air locomotive extend the collection into industrial work, showing that railway heritage overlaps with logging, engineering and specialized machinery. They are worth noticing alongside the larger mainline engines. The outdoor collection is spread across a working preservation site, so ask which vehicles are accessible and which are being restored.
Visitor information
Researched November 2026.
Sources
More railroad museums in Washington
- Issaquah Depot Museum — Issaquah: Depot and local history museum
- Northern Pacific Railway Museum — Toppenish: Depot and railroad history museum
- Northwest Railway Museum — Snoqualmie: Major railroad museum and operating collection
- Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive — Burien: Railroad archive and research collection
- Peninsular Railway and Lumbermens Museum — Shelton: Logging-railroad preservation collection
- All 6 railroad museums and sites in Washington
Keep exploring
- All heritage sites — museums, stations and landmarks
- Pacific — the trains you can ride in the region