Visiting The Virginia Museum Of Transportation In Roanoke, VA

I headed to the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA last month and honestly – I wasn’t expecting much.

I was going for my Virtual Field Trip classes on Outschool and I figured it would provide at least enough interesting things for my students for 45 minutes of class. Boy was I wrong! It was packed full of cool, interesting and fun stuff to see and learn about. Even if you’re not particularly into transportation, there are so many variations of it in the museum that it’s well worth your visit.

The photos I have here are a very small smattering of what you can expect to see and experience at the Virginia Museum of Transportation. A small disclaimer: when I went it was spooky season being just before Halloween. That means there are a few skeletons and fake rats in some pictures that aren’t there year-round.

Follow me through the museum for my favorite highlights.

My mom came with me and we decided to turn left, start at the end, work our way back and make our way around to everything we could see. This meant we started in the warehouse of historic cars.

There were a few electric cars that were interesting. I compared them to the modern Tesla for range, top speed and price for my students. It’s only $10,000 cheaper to get a standard Model 3 than it was to get the Detroit Electric Car when you do the conversion of its purchase price of $3,000 in 1913.

One fun addition was the DeLorean with its cool facts. Did you know you can still get an original DeLorean – not a replica or reproduction? They’re still made in Texas.

Once we left the cars we headed to the model train area.

I love tiny things so this was really cool but honestly, the even more impressive tiny things are upstairs… wait until you see them!

Yes – it’s a tiny circus!!! One man spent 25 years making each of the over 3,000 pieces/characters by hand, including all the tents, etc.

Eventually we had to leave the circus area. As you wander through the museum there are all kinds of little displays to look at. Then we found an area with more information about trains and buses. My favorite part was the orders hoop and my mom found a tiny Partridge Family bus that she had when she was little too.

We were already starting to flag but saw that we seemed to only have 2 rooms left. Then I saw someone go outside. Wait… There was an outside??? Yes. Yes there was.

A HUGE train yard full of amazing train cars, engines and other vehicles from around the world. Some belong to another museum that is having some renovations completed, but most of them seem to belong to the Virginia Museum of Transportation. You won’t be disappointed even if you’re not a big train fan as there’s so much to see!

One of my favorite outside items was this 1934 school bus.

Inside there’s more about the history of the railroad including an exhibit on the importance of people of color in the railroad.

There’s a whole other room for air transportation. By now mom and I were exhausted. We’d been there for about 3 hours and so we just took a quick spin through that exhibit. Definitely plan on having a full day at the museum.

So there you have it. These really are just the highlights. I took close to 1000 pictures that I could’ve shared with you! You’ll just have to visit and see it all for yourself.

Ticket Prices

At the time of my visit in October 2020, this is how much it cost to visit the museum:

• Adults (19-59) – $8
• Seniors (60+) – $6
• Youth (13-18) – $6
• Children (3-12) – $4
• Children (Under 3) – Free
• Members – Free

Address

Virginia Museum of Transportation, 303 Norfolk Ave SW, Roanoke, VA 24016