B&O Museum is gearing up for railroading's 200th anniversary
10/17/2025
By Julie Sneider, Senior Editor
The bicentennial of railroading in the United States may still be two years away, but the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore has been immersed in preparations since 2022.
The museum is located on the grounds where the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first common carrier railroad chartered in North America for the commercial transportation of freight and passengers.
As part of their preparation for what they hope will be a national recognition of railroading’s contributions to the United States, the Baltimore museum’s staff and supporters gathered in mid-May to officially kick off a $38 million construction project designed to transform the museum’s campus in time for the bicentennial in 2027.
The museum’s existing layout. B&O Railroad MuseumThe project calls for restoring the museum’s 33,000-square-foot South Car Works building, the nation’s oldest continuously operating railroad repair facility; constructing Innovation Hall, which will be dedicated to showcasing present day and future rail technology via interactive exhibits; building an amphitheater and community garden; adding classroom space for K-12 school children; and expanding storage and exhibition space for the museum’s collections and archives that contain 30 million documents.
Innovation Hall also will be a place where railroad industry jobs will be showcased to encourage students to consider railroading as a career.
A walk through history
All of that will complement the museum’s ongoing exhibits tracing U.S. railroad history through present day. The museum is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of early American locomotives and rolling stock through modern times, museum officials say.
The capital project also is designed to change the flow of visitors as they move through the campus. Under the new scenario, visitors will enter the museum through the South Car Works Building. When the project is completed, visitors will be able to explore all 200 years of railroad history, then learn more about its current state and future via technology, including AI and gamification, according to Executive Director Kris Hoellen.
A capital campaign is funding the project. So far, $25 million has been raised, including a $5 million lead gift from CSX, one of the key partners in the bicentennial celebration.
Although the museum will serve as ground zero for the bicentennial, Hoellen hopes the anniversary will spur a national celebration of the role railroads play in the American story — past, present and future.
Another rendering depicts a bicentennial garden, amphitheater and community space.Rendering provided by B&O Railroad MuseumTo that end, the museum in June unveiled a website, AmericanRail200.org, a resource for communities and organizations to share information about their own celebrations. The site also features a growing list of organizations that have signed on to be official supporters of the bicentennial. As of mid-October, those partners include CSX, the Smithsonian Institution, Amtrak, Norfolk Southern Railway, the Baltimore Orioles Major League Baseball team, Visit Maryland, Railway Supply Institute, American Bus Association, American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners, American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association and the Association of American Railroads.
The museum’s bicentennial exhibits and events being planned will help visitors understand that the railroad is universal — it connects people across the country and has ties to all industries, Hoellen explains.
“At the museum, we sometimes play a stump-the-chump game, asking if you can connect the railroad to a certain fact. Here’s one I learned recently: You know who first diagnosed color blindness? Railroad surgeons,” says Hoellen. “And that makes sense; those railroaders who couldn’t tell the difference between red and green [lights] were the first to die. There’s a huge connection between the railroads and the medical industry, but almost every industry has a connection to railroading.”
When someone mentions to her that rail isn’t a part of their lives because they don’t ride trains, she explains why that isn’t so, starting with the fact that over $2 billion in economic commerce is facilitated by railroads every day.
“We really want this celebration to be something where Americans recognize that the railroad was the internet of its time.” — Kris Hoellen B&O Railroad Museum“Everything you own and use is [moved by] the railroad,” she says. “The railroad is our history, present day and future — it's very much alive in this country.”
Something for everyone
Bicentennial events and ongoing exhibits at the museum will (and do) aid in explaining those connections. Activities and events being planned at the museum include:
• a festival that will recreate the Fair of the Iron Horse, held by the B&O Railroad in 1827 to commemorate its first 100 years of rail service. Over 1 million people attended the exhibitions and a parade featuring Conestoga wagons, stagecoaches and train locomotives;
• a ceremony to be held on July 4, 2027, to open and reveal the contents of a time capsule planted on the same day the B&O’s first stone was installed in 1828. A new time capsule will be placed for future generations to open at the tricentennial celebration; and
• an unveiling of the cosmetically restored the American Freedom Train No. 1 locomotive, one of the three steam locomotive engines used to pull the American Freedom Train of 1975 and 1976 as part of the bicentennial celebration of U.S. independence. The locomotive’s restoration, which is being done at the museum, will be completed in time for the 250th celebration of the nation’s independence in 2026 as well as the bicentennial of railroading.
Because the evolution of railroads and railroading is so interconnected with U.S. history, the 200th anniversary recognition offers something of interest to everyone, Hoellen says. Railroads have helped shape American business, society and culture. Besides the obvious — transportation — the railroad has connections to art and music, politics, time zones, communication, sports, advertising, holidays, medical care, leisure travel, education, technology and much more.
“We really want this bicentennial celebration to be something where Americans recognize that the railroad was the internet of its time — and how it changed American life socially, culturally and economically,” Hoellen says.
