There's a lot of activity going on in Union Station in Kansas City at any given time. Between its numerous traveling exhibits and permanent fixtures like Science City, it's enough to make you forget why people came to Union Station in the first place.

But through the KC Rail Experience, people get a healthy reminder of the building's original purpose along with the storied history and nostalgic allure of train travel.

While Union Station was built in 1914 and still operates as a train stop for Amtrak today, it wasn't until 2004 that officials realized people may want to come for activities that tied in to the station itself.

"We realized that the general public, because we're in a historic train building, expected to see a train exhibit," says Denise Morrison, director of collections and curatorial services for Union Station.

So the facility made a commitment to give the public what they wanted. They purchased a huge collection of train memorabilia and opened up the KC Rail Experience the following year as a part of Science City before breaking off into a separate exhibition two years later.

After an introductory video filled with background information on the railroad industry and Union Station, spectators can check out railroad artifacts, from the tools they used to build the railroad to the uniforms workers wore to the china passengers ate off of in the passenger trains.

You can also check out Grandpa's Attic and its 1,000 square feet of miniature train tracks and terrain. But the exhibit's features get big - really big - when you can see the outside of five vintage rail cars housed inside the KC Rail Experience that date back as far as the turn of the century. Ms. Morrison says the cars are currently being worked on so that people can view them inside and out for an even more fulfilling exhibit.

Everything in the KC Rail Experience isn't just meant to be viewed. There are several interactive elements. There are what Ms. Morrison calls "ghosts," a half a dozen figures of men and women who serve as passengers and railroad workers. Just stroll under one of their sound bubbles and you get insight into what it was like to be a part of passenger railroad travel at its peak.

"There's all these figures throughout the exhibit that you can walk right up to and listen to their stories," Ms. Morrison says.

But honestly, wouldn't you rather know what it feels like to actually operate a train yourself? You'll get the next best thing when you partake in the KC Rail Experience's Locomotive Simulator donated from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway's training school.

Even with railroad travel not being as popular as it used to be, the KC Rail Experience is there to help older guests recapture their days of travel and give the younger crowd a sense of how important the railroad used to be and still is.

"I hope they get a sense that it's not a dead industry," Ms. Morrison says. "I think passenger service is very nostalgic to people, particularly of a specific generation, and they've passed that fascination down to their children and grandchildren."

Tickets for the KC Rail Experience are $7. Union Station is located at 30 W. Pershing Road, Kansas City, Mo. For more information, call (816) 460-2020 or visit www.unionstation.org.

Lifestyles reporter Blake Hannon can be reached at blakehannon@npgco.com