Located to the west/northwest of Denver, Arvada is a suburban community that originally was planned as the railroad ran right through it. The area gave sprawl to farms looking to provide crops for gold miners in the mountains west, and as time has moved on, much of those farms have turned into homes and subdivisions. Now Arvada is not a stop, but a passing point for the Moffat lin, but does mark the separation of the Golden Branch and the Moffat Line

Originally built to server Golden and the communites in the hills west including Central City, Idaho Springs and more, the line has been truncated over time and now only runs to the east side of Golden and the Coors Brewery.
One interesting location nearby the western point of the line is Colorado Railroad Museum

Located in eastern Golden, this museum is a great place to discover true size Colorado railroading memorabilia. They have operating steam locomotives that run throughout the year as well as plenty of artifacts and equipment from the states colorful railroading history.

The layout features models of both Arvada and the Colorado Railraod Museum. Arvada is modeled after a smaller, more agrarian town with a downtown and surrounding farms. Note the water tower on the layout that resembles the one still standing in downtown Arvada today.

If you visit the layout, keep an ear out for the chickens and cows that make their voices heard in this area. We have a couple of stock cars that will randomly play the sounds of chickens and cows on the sididngs in this area

Our model of the Colorado Railroad Museum is a spitting image, albeit tiny, of the real museum grounds. If you've been you'll recognize the loop of track, the main building and the roudnhouse landmarks. Our model was built with the keen eye of volunteers who spend time at the museum as advisors so we maintained the best accuracy possible in our model. It sits just behind a small hill but be sure to grab a birds eye view of the museum grounds.