Amarillo is home to a few different museums, all dedicated to their own thing. A good number of the museums in the city showcase vehicles of transportation from aviation aircrafts at the Texas Air & Space Museum to classic cars at Bill’s Backyard Classics and even horses at the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum. The amount of things to learn about in a museum setting are vast in the city of Amarillo. Another mode of transportation that is showcased with its own museum is trains and the history of the railroads in Amarillo at the Amarillo Railroad Museum, Inc.
The Amarillo Railroad Museum is located east of Amarillo out past the Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 3160 I Avenue, Amarillo, TX 79111 and is dedicated to the preservation of the “rich” history and heritage of the railroad in the Texas Panhandle according to the website. In order to do this, the museum displays model railroading structures as well as maintained and cared for railroad equipment that is accessible to the public in an outdoor venue. The museum will soon open its HO Display which is a depiction of the Santa Fe railway that passed through the panhandle. It will include the distance from Canadian, TX to Clovis, NM along the railroad tracks as well.
The design of this model display was done by Byron Henderson. The museum’s website states they wanted to hire a professional to construct the layout so they wouldn’t have to worry about missing things and going back to do work. The blueprint was drawn out in 2007 and the physical set is apparently still under construction as of 2022 according to their website. It is drawn to scale a 48 by 75 foot room and contains two levels. It begins in the town of Canadian in the lower level that is raised 36 inches above the floor. Amarillo is the centerpiece of the layout and when the tracks reach the town, the elevation rises to 42 inches. Standing two feet over the lower one is the upper level. When the train departs from Amarillo, it steadily climbs to the upper level and turns back onto itself to go through Texico, NM.
This model is designed with a unique trait that gives a view from Highway 60 and features a layout from approximately 1952 until the 1970s. The museum’s objective with this feature is to entice older viewers to remember scenes they may have crossed paths with along the railroad. The owners also wanted to include the last part of the era of transition from steam to diesel so they could include the Santa Fe’s Centralized Rail Welding Plant which is no longer in operation. The Amarillo Railroad Museum states on their website that they are willing to teach volunteers about the industry if they would help out in the construction of the model.
If you are interested in visiting the Amarillo Railroad Museum, admission is free to all and donations are accepted. They are open Thursday from 7:00-9:30 PM and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
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Map from Amarillo Railroad Museum, Inc. to WilsonHaag:
Map from Amarillo Railroad Museum, Inc. to Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch: