he Virginia Museum of Transportation began in 1963 as the Roanoke Transportation Museum, located in Wasena Park in Roanoke, Virginia. That museum was housed in a retired Norfolk & Western Railway freight depot on the banks of the Roanoke River. The earliest components of the collection included a United States Army Jupiter rocket and the J class steam locomotive No. 611, donated by Norfolk & Western Railway to the City of Roanoke where many of its engines were constructed. In 1985, a major flood nearly destroyed the museum and much of its collection. In April of the following year, the museum moved and reopened in the Norfolk & Western Railway Freight Station in downtown Roanoke. The collection was renamed the Virginia Museum of Transportation, recognized by the General Assembly of Virginia as the Commonwealth's official transportation museum. Although the core of the museum's collection is railroad artifacts and equipment, automobile and aviation exhibits are also featured.

Norfolk & Western steam locomotives No. 611 and No. 1218 were originally property of the city of Roanoke, where the N&W famously designed and built several classes of steam locomotives. However, in 2012 and in honor of the museum's 50th anniversary, the city officially transferred ownership of the rare locomotives to the museum. Class J #611 is in operation today and is frequently offsite for excursions and guest appearances at other museums or tourist lines. Closed by the railroad in 1964, the Norfolk & Western Railway Freight Station on Norfolk Avenue was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, also in 2012. Preserved railroad equipment related to the Commonwealth's rail history includes steam, diesel, and electric locomotives, freight and passenger rolling stock, and a handful of cabooses and other unique railed specimens.