The birthplace of the Big Boy Steam Dream

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 2, 2025, and concluding on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 2025. 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.

Friday, July 11, 2025 – Rail Meeting 7:30pm On Zoom

We moved our Rail Meetings to the internet. See access information below.

Ecuador 2003 - Steam in The Andes Presented by Harvey Laner

The program begins in Duran, across the Guyas River from Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. It’s July, 2003 and Harvey Laner joined Trains Unlimited Tours steam powered charted trains on the Guayaquil & Quito Railroad, a 287-mile rail line from Duran at sea level to the Country’s capitol, Quito at an elevation just above 9,000 feet. It’s an amazing journey that begins at Ecuador’s fertile coastal plain with the tropical climate and the expansive banana plantations. Our steam train was powered by G&Q’s oldest locomotive, number 11 a 1900 built Baldwin.

The program then moves high into the Andes. Our train is powered by G&Q number 17, a 1935-built Baldwin, through the famous Devils Nose Switchbacks beginning deep in the Chanchan River Canyon up grades reaching 5.7 percent through the Alusi Loops. Next is Riobamba, the capital of Chimborazo Province in central Ecuador located in the Chambo River Valley of the Andes. Here we travel to Guamote where this remote town hosts one of the most important indigenous markets in Ecuador. Our train and passengers mingle with the town locals.

Thursday July 24, 2003 is our last day on the Guayaquil & Quito Railroad. And it promised to be a grand finale. Baldwin number 17 was joined by another Baldwin, number 53. The 2-8-0 consolidation was built by Baldwin in 1953 as part of the seven locomotive group that became the last narrow gauge steam locomotives built in the United States. The two trains, one a mixto or mixed train, the other replicating a short, branch line local freight, run up the Avenue of the Volcanoes from Riobamba to the summit of Urbina Pass, the highest point on the railroad at 11,841 feet elevation.

This is an action-packed program with lots of American-built narrow-gauge steam, classic Equatorian railbuses, a Mercedes-Benz railbus and G&Q diesel number 2404, a French Alstrom-built model AD24, B-B-B configured 2400 HP locomotive

How to attend our meeting:

  • On your computer’s internet browser, go to: RailMeeting.org (this will take you to the Zoom meeting room).
  • Password: 3450
  • Doors open at 7:15 pm (Pacific Daylight Time).
  • Our meeting begins at 7:30 pm, on Friday, July 11, 2025. (Using international time, that’s at 02:30 UTC on Saturday.)

We recommend visiting RailMeeting.org before the meeting to download the most recent version of Zoom software.

Future Monthly Meeting Dates and Topics

Friday
July 11, 2025
Ecuador 2003 - Steam in The Andes

Tuesday
August 12, 2025
To be announced

Friday
September 12, 2025
To be announced

Tuesday
October 14, 2025
To be announced