McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park

On our recent trip to Arizona we revisited the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, which we've reported on before.   But this time we also went through some of the historical displays and the large model railroad building.

The park is operated by the city of Scottsdale, and as such, it's much different from almost any railroad museum.  Entrance to the park is free, but tickets are sold for the various rides: a steam-powered 15" gauge train, some smaller 7" gauge trains operated by the live-steamers club, a carousel, and entrance to the railroad museum displays, shown below.  Tickets are $2 or 6 for $10, which seems quite reasonable.  The park also has a couple of playgrounds, food vendors, and so forth.  It's an excellent place for families.

  At the entrance is the Magma-Arizona engine:

And we went for a ride on the live-steam train.

And then we went through the separate museum displays.  The park includes several historic depots of various sizes, which were moved here.

The pride of the small historic fleet is the ex-Presidential car Roald Amundsen.  

And then there's this relic from an amusement park:

There is a large model railroad building.  Most of the building is taken up by three large layouts in O, HO, and N scales.   These are evidently maintained and operated by club members, and when we were there on a Saturday afternoon, there were several people working on each layout.