The engine house is both a protective home and workshop for railway equipment here at Laws. Currently it is the site of repair and restoration work being performed on our own Slim Princess Engine No.9, which has spent many years outdoors on static display after pulling the last train into Laws in 1964.
Housed here also is the fully restored Death Valley Railroad's self-propelled 1927 J.G Brill & Co. railcar #5, which is available for public rides on select weekends. The Brill Car was built for the Death Valley Railroad, to transport tourists to the Furnace Creek Inn in an effort to sustain its rail line after the decline of borax mining operations. By 1930 the Death Valley Railroad was abandoned and the railcar was relocated to Carlsbad, New Mexico where it was used by the U.S. Potash company to transport its mill workers to the jobsite until 1956. In 1967 it was returned to California to become a part of the Laws Railroad Museum, where it would ultimately become the only fully restored and operational Brill Car in North America.
Additionally, the smaller "Old Smokey" engine which came from the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine located in the Sierra Nevada above the northwest end of the Owens Valley, is at home here in the Engine House.
This engine barn and repair shop was constructed beginning in 1999 for the renovation project of the Brill Car, which was completed by 2004.