B&O Railroad Museum

The B&O Railroad Museum is housed in an 1884 roundhouse that is architecturally one of the most impressive industrial buildings in Baltimore. The circular structure was designed to house the turntable that moved locomotives between tracks, and today it contains a spectacular collection of 19th and early 20th century locomotives and rolling stock.

The museum tells the story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from its founding in 1830 — as the first passenger railroad in America — through its eventual absorption into CSX. The collection includes some genuinely rare early locomotives, and the building itself is worth the admission fee independently of the exhibits. Located in the southwest Baltimore industrial district, about a 15-minute drive from the Inner Harbor.

things to do museum
A story
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first passenger railroad in the United States, making its inaugural run on August 28, 1830. The locomotive used — the Tom Thumb — was tiny, underpowered, and famously lost a race against a horse in the same year. Despite this inauspicious start, the B&O went on to become one of the great American railroads and the catalyst for the entire American railroad network. The roundhouse it built in 1884 is now one of the finest railroad museum buildings in the world.

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