Southeastern Railway Museum

The story

Tucked off Buford Highway in Duluth, Georgia’s official transportation history museum spreads across 35 industrial acres. Founded in 1970 by the Atlanta Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, it feels less like a sanitized exhibit hall and more like an open-air yard of heavy iron—housing over 90 pieces of historic rolling stock, vintage MARTA buses, and a restored 1871 passenger depot. You didn't hear it from us, but behind the grease and rusted coupling pins sit steel cars that played direct roles in American presidential history.

Walk inside The Superb, a 1911 Pullman private railcar listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In June 1923, President Warren G. Harding boarded this steel coach for his cross-country 'Voyage of Understanding.' When he died suddenly in San Francisco mid-tour, the car carried his coffin back across the continent to Washington, D.C., and his final resting place in Marion, Ohio. A short walk away sits the Marco Polo, a 1927 Pullman car used by Franklin D. Roosevelt for his trips to Warm Springs, Georgia, and later chartered by Madame Chiang Kai-shek during her 1943 tour of the United States.

Beyond presidential rolling stock, you'll find Southern Railway No. 6901—a 1951 EMD E8 diesel engine that once pulled the Southern Crescent passenger train—and Atlanta & West Point steam locomotive No. 290. Because much of the collection remains outdoors or parked in unheated sheds while small crews of volunteers execute multi-year restorations, exploring the property feels like stepping directly onto an active rail yard before the security crew arrived.