Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, Railway museum in Cranbrook, Canada

The Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook holds 28 restored railway cars, including the renowned Trans-Canada Limited from 1929 and the Soo-Spokane Train collection positioned along Highway 3/95. The vehicles span different types of passenger coaches, freight cars, and specialty cars representing more than a century of Canadian rail travel.

The museum was founded in 1977 when a group discovered the dining car from the Trans-Canada Limited and decided to establish a railway museum around it. The collection expanded over the following decades to become one of North America's largest assemblies of early 1900s Canadian railway cars.

The museum's name comes from its original mission: restoring the transcontinental "Deluxe Hotels-On-Wheels" of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Its 1929 Trans-Canada Limited set, a Jazz Era Art Deco design, won Heritage Canada's Achievement Award for restoration in 1993. The 1907 Soo-Spokane cars show Edwardian Art Nouveau interiors, and the 1927 executive night car Strathcona hosted Queen Elizabeth II, the Kennedys and Winston Churchill.

The museum sits beside Highway 3/95 making it easy to find, and 13 of the railway cars are accessible to visitors with mobility needs. Guided tours walk you through the restored vehicles and share their stories.

Among the vehicles on display is a rare observation car from which passengers once watched the landscape roll by during train journeys. This type of car reveals how train travel was packaged as a luxury experience with specialized viewing areas.