Not far from the Ulaanbaatar Railway Station, six obsolete locomotives sit unmoving in a fenced-off garden adjacent to the tracks. The open-air display of trains, collectively known as the Mongolian Railway History Museum, is dedicated to the history of the locomotives that once traversed the country. One is outfitted with a golden plate depicting Joseph Stalin, while two others bear red, five-pointed stars, a symbol associated with communist ideology.

Railway development has played a significant role in recent Mongolian history, especially in relation to the coal mining industry. Extending south from the Mongolia–Russia border, the Trans-Mongolian Railway reached Ulaanbaatar in 1950, and was expanded to the southern Chinese border some five years later. Prior to that, there were only a few freight trains carrying coal between Mongolian mines and Russian coal plants. 

The collection features three steam-powered trains as well as three diesel-powered locomotives. For railway buffs, these include: Locomotive 2-10-0 (L-3167), 750mm gauge T159, Voroshilovgrad 2M62M-043, Te1-20-011 (erroneously marked as TEM1-166), Baldwin/ALCO-influenced 2-10-0, and Su 208-88.