The Rappahannock Railroad Museum, Fredericksburg, Virginia

You have your everyday typical small railroad museum, and you have the Rappahannock Railroad Museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  When you arrive, you will notice the two cabooses: one from the Fredericksburg, Richmond and Potomac Railroad and the other from the Norfolk and Western Railroad.  You then see a box car from Conrail and a baggage car from the Pennsylvania Railroad.  These for cars house the museum.  Inside you will see a few model train displays and memorabilia from the Fredericksburg, Richmond and Potomac Railroad to include old paintings and photos.  The RF&P caboose is set up like a normal caboose.  You then walk around outside and see the old signals and repair equipment.  There is even the passenger shed that is a replica of the old sheds that you saw along the railroad lines in years past.  All of these cars and maintenance equipment is displayed on spur lines of the CSX main line.

If you had visited this museum in the old days, this would have been all that you would have seen.  You now have a reason to revisit this museum.

The museum was able to acquire two trailers.  The one trailer displays more railroad memorabilia.  The other houses three model train displays.  You have the one HO scale display.  Then you have the smaller N scale display.  Then you have the larger O scale display.

You may think that this is everything, but it is not.  There is the most important thing at the museum.

How can you come to the museum and not ride the Little Yellow Train?  Maintenance of Way cars are assembled together to form a train, and you can ride this train along the spur track crossing two grade crossings to include the one at Virginia Route 2 and end at the main CSX line.  If you are fortunate enough, you may see an Amtrak or CSX train pass by.  When you return to the museum, you may want to take another ride.

What appears to be a small museum has so much on the inside.  They go to great lengths to display the history of the Fredericksburg Richmond and Potomac Railroad as well as the importance of maintaining the tracks to ensure that the trains and the people stay safe as they roll on down the line.

The Rappahannock Railroad Museum is located at 11700 Main Street in the Joseph Mills Industrial Park in Fredericksburg, Virginia just off Virginia Route 2 and U.S. Business Route 17.  It is easily accessible from Interstate 95, U.S. Routes 1 and 17 and from Virginia Route 3.  It is currently open on Saturdays from 9:00am to 12:00pm.  (They are currently looking into expanding their hours.)  Admission is free, but they gladly accept donations to help with the expenses of operating the museum today and for generations to come.  Parking is available at the museum.  The Little Yellow Train runs every Saturday in fair weather.  Please note that the baggage cars and cabooses are not handicap accessible, but the model train building and new museum building is.

The next time you are making your Saturday journey along Interstate 95, make a stopover in Fredericksburg and check out the Rappahannock Railroad Museum.  It is a detour that you will be happy to make.