Steamtown, U.S.A.

Steamtown, U.S.A. was a railroad museum in Bellows Falls that housed steam-powered locomotives and other rail equipment from the industrial era. The museum also offered rides on historic tracks that ran along the Connecticut River between North Walpole and Westmoreland.

Collector F. Nelson Blount founded the museum in 1964 by moving his locomotive collection from North Walpole to a rail yard in Bellows Falls. The site grew into a center for preserving American railroad machines from the industrial period.

The site displayed locomotives and workshops where visitors could see how railroad workers maintained and repaired their machines. The way everything was arranged let people experience the hands-on side of railroad operations directly.

The grounds were easy to walk around and trains ran at regular times throughout the day. Visitors should wear sturdy shoes since there was a lot of walking on tracks and around the equipment.

Vermont air-quality rules in the early 1970s forced the museum to switch to diesel locomotives because steam engines produced too much smoke. This change shifted the visitor experience and was a rare case of environmental rules directly affecting a museum collection.