Special Events
RailGiants Train Museum Hours
RailGiants is open on selected weekends and during The Los Angeles County Fair
RailGiants Train Museum is open on the second full weekend of each month. Our hours of operation are from 10am until 5pm. RailGiants is located in the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California. During our open house weekends at RailGiants, visitors can walk around all locomotives and railcars and buy train souvenirs in our RailGiants Store in the depot. By walking up stairways into each giant locomotive, you can see into the cabs where engineers and firemen operated these large engines down the tracks of the nation’s rail network. Visitors are welcome to join us while maintenance and rehabilitation work is in progress and ask our volunteer museum staff members any questions.
Admission to the RailGiants Train Museum is always free. During the Los Angeles County Fair event, RailGiants is part of The County Fair, and there is no additional cost to enter RailGiants after purchasing an admission ticket to The County Fair. Any donation to help maintain our equipment is optional, but always welcome. The excellent conditional of our historic railroad equipment is achieved by the generous donations of past visitors and the help of our volunteer members.
Please note: when the scheduled Sunday falls on Easter, the museum will be closed on that Sunday.
Check the Event Schedule page for our current schedule of days and hours.
If you need to make arrangements to see RailGiants Train Museum on a day when we are not normally open, or for filming for television and motion pictures, please send us a message on our Contact Us page, or call the Museum Depot on 909-623-0190.
Los Angeles County Fair
The Fair is held for 16 days, starting on Friday, May 3, 2024, and concluding on Memorial Day,
Monday, May 27, 2024. RailGiants and the County Fair are closed on some weekdays; check our schedule for specific days. During the County Fair, RailGiants Train Museum is part of the County Fair and is open on every day of the County Fair. However, entry to RailGiants requires purchasing admission to the County Fair. Once inside the County Fair, no additional fees are required to enter RailGiants and see our trains.
Check the Fair's website for complete information regarding fair dates, times, parking, and costs.
Rail Meetings
Join us for monthly for updates, interesting programs about railroads, and visiting with your fellow members. Meetings are held on the second Tuesday or second Friday of each month at 7:30pm. For the most up-to-date information about our schedule of meetings, please refer to our Event Schedule page, or our monthly newsletter, the Observation Platform (O.P.). Any questions, comments, or suggestions about our meetings? Send us a message on our Contact Us page.
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 – Rail Meeting 7:30pm On Zoom
We moved our Rail Meetings to the internet. See access information below.
Southern California’s Inter-City Passenger Trains before Amtrak Films of John McCourt
Decades before smartphones were invented for railfans to record train videos, John McCourt used his motion picture camera that required exposing train scenes with manual lens focusing onto color film. Remember when film required processing by a developer? Mail to Kodak or drop off at your convenient Fotomat drive-thru booth at a local shopping center. During the final year before Amtrak, John traveled onboard several Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and Union Pacific passenger trains with his movie camera. He also captured many off the train scenes of their former passenger trains passing by many locations and stopping at several stations.
These films include many trains and routes that were not adopted by Amtrak and were discontinued. We will also witness how these trains appeared in the early years of Amtrak’s oversight. We will also see how the former Santa Fe Railway’s line appeared in Pasadena during early construction of the I-210 Freeway before track realignment. Watch for vintage business signage for an era long gone by.
John McCourt passed last year and was a member and director of our organization.
How to join our meeting:
- On your computer’s internet browser, go to: RailMeeting.org (that will take you to the Zoom meeting room).
- Password: 3450
- Doors open at 7:15 pm (Pacific Daylight Time).
- Meeting begins at 7:30 pm, on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. (Using international time, that’s at 02:30 UTC on Wednesday.)
We recommend visiting RailMeeting.org before the meeting to download the most recent version of Zoom software.
Future Monthly Meeting Dates and Topics
Tuesday
October 8, 2024
Southern California’s Inter-City Passenger Trains before Amtrak
Friday
November 8, 2024
To be announced
Tuesday
December 10, 2024
To be announced