Sydney History: A Visit to the NSW Train Museum

We travelled back in time to the late 1800s of New South Wales, to learn all about Australian train history at the train museum.

If you follow my blog, you would have read about a trip my partner, myself and mother-in-law made a few months back, where we took a road trip out of Sydney, around 45 minutes south to a town called Picton.

When we went there, we decided to take a drive after lunch to explore what else was around the area and came across an incredible museum called the NSW Train Museum. It;s located around five minutes from Picton in a town called Thirlmere.

It was absolutely massive and from the street you could see some of the most amazing old steam trains I have ever seen. All dating back to the late 1800s when train lines were being developed across the country after colonisation.

So, many months later and my partner and I finally took some time out on the weeken to take our nephew to the museum to explore the trains. Our nephew loved the experience, but I am pretty sure my partner and I went purely for out own fascination instead of our nephew’s LOL.

We went on a Saturday and the museum was super quiet – no one around, expect for the odd couple and father with their son here and there. Which was great, as we had the museum to ourselves.

However, we were a tad dissapointed a lot of the trains weren;t open to inspect and you had to only look through the window. We respect this could have been due to little staff seen around the giant museum and no one to moderate what was going on in the trains. And, some of the trains were in fairly poor condition.

Saturday’s are also quiet at the museum because everyone goes on a Sunday. This is becasue on Sunday they do train rides on the old steam rides.

Pretty upset we missed out on this opportunity going on a Sunday and I probably should have called the museum to find out what was on there before going. But on the plus side, we had the museum to ourselves, so that was something.

If you do decide to take a drive out to the museum one weekend, go on a Sunday so you can enjoy the museum in it’s full glory, with train ride and all.