The Danbury Railway Museum is a railway museum housed in the former Union Station on the east end of downtown Danbury, Connecticut, United States. It was established in the mid-1990s following the closure of the station by the Metro-North Railroad in favor of a new station nearby, and primarily focuses on the history of railroading in southern New England and neighboring New York. In addition to the former station building, the museum has a collection of heritage railcars in the neighboring rail yard it shares with Metro-North.
The station was built in 1903 by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in response to local pressure for a new station after the three railroads that served the city were merged into the New Haven. At the station's peak, 125 trains stopped there in a day. By 1993, that had dwindled to a few commuter trains, and the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which by then owned the neglected building, closed it in favor of a newer station on the other side of the block. Within two years the museum was formed and restored the station to its former appearance.
It is architecturally distinctive, with Colonial Revival touches on a Richardsonian Romanesque structure. Alfred Hitchcock filmed station scenes for Strangers on a Train on its distinctive curved platform. In 1986, prior to the museum's use of the building, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was joined on the Register in 2005 by the former turntable, the only intact one in the state.
Site
The museum itself is located on a lot at the southeast corner of White Street and Patriot Drive, just across from Meeker's Hardware, which is also on the Register. To its west is a parking lot with room for 25 cars. Immediately behind it, to the south, are the railroad tracks and a rail yard. The current Danbury station is a short distance away, and sometimes Metro-North stores its trains on the tracks behind the station between runs. The museum's collection of older cars is on the tracks in the yard's interior. A grade crossing on White marks the eastern terminus of the Beacon Line kept in reserve by Metro-North for possible future use.
Building
The station building is a one-story L-shaped structure of buff and brown brick with sandstone trim, , both wings topped with gabled roofs covered in asphalt. Hipped-roof dormer windows pierce the north and west elevations, and similar canopies run along the tracks on either side, continuing the overhanging bracketed eaves that shelter the platform on the building itself. A single chimney rises from the south end of the station, near where the sets of tracks meet.
Windows vary in size and shape. Those on the east are high and small, whereas tall windows that give the impression of sidelights are along the southwest, next to the tracks. These are hints of the Colonial Revival style that was emerging at the time of the station's construction.
Inside, the museum's exhibits and displays occupy the southern half of the building, its former waiting room. In the northern half, is the museum's gift shop and restrooms. The original ticket window and the varnished pine door and window architraves. Immediately east of the entry is a fireplace whose mantel is decorated in molded brick in floral patterns.
The facility comprises a railroad yard full of restored and unrestored railroad equipment, and the restored station house containing exhibits of photographs and railroad paraphernalia, model train layouts, an extensive reference library, and a gift shop. The station is "significant in the history of Danbury" and also as a "good example" of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century railway station building. Its architectural style of the hip-roofed station is eclectic, with exterior Richardsonian and Colonial Revival elements. Its interior workmanship is more impressive.
Yard
Visitors can ride the "Rail Yard Local" on weekends in the summer season. The ride takes about 30–35 minutes and includes a unique ride by the passengers on the museum's operating turntable, and a tour of the recently restored Danbury fairground's pumphouse. The turntable was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 15, 2005. The turntable, built around 1914 was originally part of a roundhouse and machine shop complex. A fire destroyed the buildings in the 1980s, leaving "the only intact surviving [railroad] turntable in Connecticut". It is essentially a swing bridge, and is located several hundred yards east of the station.