The museum is home to rail artifacts including the Boston & Providence Railroad Passenger Coach built in 1833; Providence “Daniel Nason”; the Union Pacific #4006 (“Big Boy”), the largest successful steam locomotive ever built; and the 6,600-hp, two-engine Union Pacific diesel #6944 (“Centennial”), built by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division in 1971 and more.

The motors in the collection are usually silent, but the “Wow’s” are pretty loud. On display in the Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center, the road vehicle collection of over 200 items includes a 1901 automobile built by the St. Louis Motor Carriage Co.—the oldest of only nine such cars known to still be in existence—as well as the only operational Chrysler turbine car on public display and more.

By land or by sea; included in our range of watercraft, aircraft and other items is a Douglas Aircraft. The twin-engine 1943 Douglas Aircraft product, the military version of the DC-3, is believed to have been used by United States forces in the World War II D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Right next to this historical airplane, walk the decks of the H.T. Pott tugboat, the first tug to have an all-steel welded hull.