bowie train station museum

My wife was taking a test for school at our house so I had to kill some time with my son. I started out driving not knowing where to go, then remembered this place. After some quick checking, it turns out this place opens at 10 on Sunday when pretty much everything else opens at noon. So knowing that my son has a love of all things train, I decided to check it out. It is what you would expect from a smaller museum in a town. There were two buildings, an old train stop bench, and a caboose. We did not go into either of the buildings but spend a significant amount of time with the caboose. At first it was locked so we played around on and behind it for a while. There are active train tracks right next to the museum (separated by a fence of course) so if you wait, you can see trains rushing by. After about 15 minutes someone came by and unlocked the caboose. It was nice to go inside as outside it was quite chilly and the caboose had a heater. Inside the caboose was a toy wooden train table, a play rug, several books and places to sit. There were also lots of display posters with information on them about the museum and Bowie itself. We ended up spending about an hour inside the caboose. My son loved the puzzles and toy trains and he would rush to climb up on a chair to look out the windows whenever he heard a train going by. There is a schedule listed right by door that lists the times that trains will go by. It was listed as Summer/Fall, but the times were pretty accurate. All in all this was a nice little museum and a great place to spend the morning with my two year old.

This museum is easy to find and has plenty of free parking. I, like me, you arrive to find the museum locked, just walk to the visitor centre and they will open it for you. It has 2 display rooms with a model railway (not running) in one

This has photos and tells a bit of the history of the town of Bowie. The lady in charge was very helpful about letting us know what else was good to see in the area.

The town of Bowie, Maryland was founded as a stop on the railroad. Unfortunately, the railroad is gone but the museum tells of a by-gone era. This is a great trip for children who can walk, not recommended for strollers. There are some pictures on the wall of Old Bowie. The staff is volunteer and the museum is open mostly on weekends.

The trip with neices and nephews made this an educational experience. Can't wait to take the basketball team!

Small museum with professional exhibits. Focuses on rail history of Bowie, MD and for kids, a primer on railroading in general. Museum has several parts; a caboose, small buildings and a now out of service interlocking tower. The caboose is primarily for children and has small toys and brief description of what cabooses were for. The small buildings have displays on railroad history of in Bowie (good selection of PRR printed material) and an small model railroad. The former interlocking tower is the best part; it is well preserved and includes various employee manuals and timetables and other printed material that would have been in use by the towermen. Tower has a great view of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, so there are plenty of trains to see. Well worth a trip for folks interested in trains or with children so interested.