Mount Clare Station

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum and Mount Clare Station
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Mount Clare Station and roundhouse
Show map of Baltimore Show map of Maryland Show map of the US
Location	901 West Pratt Street Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Coordinates	39°17′7.42″N 76°37′56.63″W / 39.2853944°N 76.6323972°W / 39.2853944; -76.6323972Coordinates: 39°17′7.42″N 76°37′56.63″W / 39.2853944°N 76.6323972°W / 39.2853944; -76.6323972
Built	1829 (original site) 1851 (current station structure) 1884 (roundhouse)
Architect	Ephraim Francis Baldwin
Architectural style	Georgian
NRHP reference #	66000906
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	September 15, 1961

External video

American Artifacts: History of the B&O Railroad 30 minutes in the B&O Railroad Museum, C-SPAN

B&O Railroad Museum Television Network - Jan 2012, Museum locomotives in Hollywood films

The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland, originally named the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum when it opened on July 4, 1953. It has been called one of the most significant collections of railroad treasures in the world and has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the U.S. The museum is located in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's old Mount Clare Station and adjacent roundhouse, part of the B&O's sprawling Mount Clare Shops site begun in 1829, the oldest railroad manufacturing complex in the United States.

Mount Clare is considered to be a birthplace of American railroading, as the site of the first regular railroad passenger service in the U.S., beginning on May 22, 1830. It was also to this site that the first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?" was sent on May 24, 1844, from Washington, D.C., using Samuel F. B. Morse's invention.

The museum houses collections of 19th- and 20th-century artifacts related to America's railroads. The collection includes 250 pieces of railroad rolling stock, 15,000 artifacts, 5,000 cubic feet (140 m³) of archival material, four significant 19th-century buildings, including the historic roundhouse, and a mile of track, considered the most historic mile of railroad track in the United States. Train rides are offered on the mile of track on Wednesday through Sunday from April through December and weekends in January. In 2002, the museum had 160,000 visitors annually.

The museum also features an outdoor G-scale layout, an indoor HO scale model, and a wooden model train for children to climb on. From Thanksgiving through the New Year, local model railroad groups set up large layouts on the roundhouse floor and in select locations on the grounds of the museum. A museum store offers toys, books, DVDs and other railroad-related items.