You don't have to be a train lover to be more than impressed by the CA State Railroad Museum. (My wife is the proof.) From the moment we stepped into the door, staff members made us feel welcome and wanted.

Most train museums are mainly a collection of static equipment. This one's collection is truly OUTSTANDING, with some of the finest and most highly decorated engines and cars from the 1850s forward, but it rates far higher on the interpretive scale than most of its peers. The CA State RR museum goes out of its way to point out the impact of railroad transportation on life in general and the economy in particular -- both in California and the nation.

Start with the 20-minute introductory film that sets the stage for your visit. You'll move directly from the theatre into a huge room that shows how surveying parties searched for a route through the Sierras, the beautiful locomotives of the era, and how miles of snowsheds had to be built, who built the railroads, how they were built, etc.

You'll see one of the spikes used to finish the Transcontinental RR in 1869 and follow the progression from antique wooden coaches to luxury trains with bedrooms and dining cars that served 4-star meals on specially thrown china (major collector's items today).

You get up close to a wide variety of steam and diesel engines, from a small yard switcher to the huge Cab Forward that you can enter, sit in the engineer's seat and ask questions of a very well informed guide.

There is an excellent collection of model trains of all sizes -- including a lot of live steam models -- and a large operating layout of pre-WWII Standard Gauge Lionel equipment you can operate by pressing buttons. Young kids were having a great time playing at three or four tables of the little wood trains that are held together by magnets.

I went out of my way to visit this museum, which involved choosing to drive five hours to my ultimate destination -- and then five hours back to fly out of Sacramento. No regrets whatsoever!