Travel Town Museum
In the late 1940s, a Recreation and Parks employee named Charley Atkins had a simple idea: a full-size steam locomotive would make a fine addition to the miniature railway ride at Griffith Park. The City of Los Angeles Harbor Department happened to have two small locomotives destined for the scrapyard — engines that had hauled stone from a Santa Catalina Island quarry to build breakwaters at the Port of Los Angeles. Atkins contacted California's major railroads, found them generous, and on December 14, 1952, inaugurated Travel Town Museum in the park's northwest corner. The site had been used as an internment camp during World War II.
The Collection
Travel Town's core purpose is to tell the story of railroad transportation in the western United States from 1880 through the 1930s, with particular emphasis on Southern California. The collection contains 43 full-scale railroad engines, cars, and other rolling stock. The earliest locomotives were left open for children to climb on — a policy that ended in 1955 when fencing went up to stop vandalism. A Union Pacific Railroad dining car, donated in 1954, was for years available for birthday parties. The narrow-gauge Crystal Springs and Southwestern Railroad operated locomotives from Oahu on a kilometer of track beginning in 1955, though those locomotives were eventually returned to Hawaii.
Riding the Melody Ranch Special
Visitors can still ride the Travel Town Railroad, a miniature railway that makes two circuits around the museum grounds. The train was originally known as the Melody Ranch Special — it was owned by Gene Autry, whose film Melody Ranch gave it the name. The original steam engine was vandalized beyond economical repair and replaced by a diesel engine housed in a steam-locomotive shell called Courage. The miniature railway coexists with two others within Griffith Park: the Griffith Park and Southern Railroad and the Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum, creating a small concentration of miniature railroading in the hills above the L.A. basin.
On Screen and in the Archive
Travel Town's proximity to the Hollywood studios made it a frequent filming location. The Monkees, Columbo, Knight Rider, Dallas, Quantum Leap, and Ghost Whisperer all shot scenes here. Foreigner filmed two music videos at the museum in 1977. The main exhibit hall holds a remarkably diverse collection beyond locomotives: a chariot from the 1959 film Ben-Hur, circus wagons, horse-drawn delivery vehicles, a 1932 Packard sedan, and a 1918 Mack dump truck. A cut-away boiler demonstration exhibit shows the mechanical heart of steam technology. Artifacts, menus, timetables, and chinaware trace the social history of rail travel in a region where the railroad arrived in 1876 and made cities possible.
From the Air
Located at 34.154°N, 118.308°W in the northwest corner of Griffith Park, Los Angeles. The museum grounds are visible from low altitude, bordered by the Los Angeles River channel to the west and the park's wooded hills to the east. Bob Hope Airport (KBUR) lies approximately 4 miles to the northwest; Hollywood Burbank remains the primary airport for this part of the valley. The miniature railroad loop is visible from the air at lower altitudes.