Shearn Moody Plaza was the headquarters of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe until the offices closed in 1964. The majority of the building is office space for various businesses and organizations, but the large, central waiting room is the original waiting room built in 1932. As you walk in the front door from the Strand, to your left you will observe what was the Harvey House restaurant, to your right is the ticket booth, and straight ahead is the news stand and the doors to the concourses. The waiting room is now called the People's Gallery and is populated by Ghosts of Travelers Past. The full-sized figures in the gallery were made with plaster molds of real persons, and depict individuals who might have passed through the waiting room in 1932. The figures were created in 1981 by Elliot and Ivan Schwarz. Off to the left, where the Harvey House was, are several pieces of railroad china on display. These were donated by Henry Renfert and collectively are known as the Renfert Collection. The Santa Fe Freight Building, the building to the left as one walks out onto the concourse, parallels Santa Fe Place and now houses three theaters depicting stages of Galveston history, and a 700 square foot HO-scale model railroad.

When renovations were complete in 1982, the Museum opened its doors to visitors. Since then, well over a million visitors have toured the Museum. With the formal establishment of the Museum, donations began to arrive. Among the more notable are the Renfert collection of railroad china, estimated to be the largest collection of its kind in the United States, which was donated by Dr. Henry Renfert of Austin, Texas, in 1991, and the Santa Fe business car and Missouri Pacific caboose donated by Dorothy Hurd in 1990.

The Museum has an important story to tell -- the birth of railroading in Texas. And it is a story that the Museum intends to preserve for future generations. The state's first steam locomotive, the "General Sherman," arrived at the Port of Galveston in 1853. Railroads became the lifeblood of Texas commerce, with an ever-expanding network of rail arteries serving to link major areas. As the largest, most cosmopolitan city in the southwest, Galveston in the late 1800s was the center of commerce, pumping cotton, sugar, and other goods onto and off of rail cars at its thriving port. During its railroading history Galveston Island has been headquarters of and/or served by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, the Galveston, Houston and Henderson, the Gulf and Interstate, the M-K-T, the Texas and Pacific, the Burlington-Rock Island, the Missouri Pacific, and the Southern Pacific.

Even today railroads play a part in Galveston life. The port is served by the Union Pacific and its subsidiary the Southern Pacific, and by the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroads. These lines carry grain, sugar, sulfur and other commodities daily. Visitors can not only see the Museum's historical collection, they can observe the daily activities at the nearby Port of Galveston's grain unloading facility.