South Dakota State Railroad Museum, Ltd. — Attraction in Hill City

Waste of money. Our kids LOVE trains, so we figured we could do no wrong by going out of our way on our vacation to stop here. First off, the cost to ride the "historic" train is unreal. Absolutely astronomical. We couldn't afford that, but figured that the train museum might have, you know, trains. We paid $5 per adult to get in and found it to be one small room filled with old railroad items, most of which weren't even labeled. It looked like an episode of "American Pickers" gone bad. There was a model train set which would have been pretty cool if the curator had allowed my kids to even look at it. Every time my kids got close enough to even look at it, the curator told them to back away. They lost interest quickly. If you're into paying $5 to see what a set of dishes looked like on the Great Northern Railroad, then this place is perfect for you. If you want to see actual trains, don't waste your time or your money. Basically, we ended up paying $10 to watch our kids play with the off-brand wooden train tracks tucked away in a corner for 10 minutes. Waste of...

Friendly folks at the front desk. Great collection of vintage items from many different rail lines. Informative/interesting timeline on the side of two walls.

I would've liked to see a bit more action on the model layout, but that's about the worst thing I can say.

Not sure what that one person was complaining about. There's far more than a few dishes on display. Probably just mad about the prices for the train ride, which isn't even associated with the museum, other than the latter offering a discount if you do the former.

Nice...

This is a privately owned Museum and not part of the 1880 Railroad. They charge a small fee to enter. They have an assortment of history in side a small building. Plenty to see for a Childs attention span. It did appear they have a Library of books for reference. (I didn't ask) They have a full scale caboose on static display inside. Other items include a model HO railroad layout. There was a volunteer inside that can assist with any question you may have about...