Lamy is reached from Santa Fe by taking northbound I-25 to US-285. The exit to Lamy, just east of US-285, is seven miles from the freeway. A bus ride to Lamy has been Santa Fe's only railroad link with the rest of the world since 1926. In 1878 the main line of the Santa Fe Railroad bypassed Santa Fe, leaving Santa Fe connected by a spur line to Lamy. On October 1, 1926, service over the spur line was discontinued. Passengers, mail, and baggage had to be transported by busses, "Harveycars." The town grew with the railroad and was named to honor Jean Baptise Lamy, the first archbishop of the American Territorial period.

Bishop Lamy came to the Santa Fe diocese in 1853 and labored prodigiously among Anglos, Mexicans, and Indians to reform a religious establishment which had been allowed to grow stagnant and corrupt. He removed several priests from their posts and unfrocked them; some were members of New Mexico's leading families. Vengeful politicians attempted to oust him, but he continued on. Willa Cather immortalized Bishop Lamy in her novel Death Comes for the Archbishop." (Eldorado Windy Farm, Lamy History)

In the town across from the railway station is the Legal Tender Restaurant which has been opened off and on since the 1950s. From 2006 to 2018 it operated as the The Lamy Railroad & History Museum thanks to Sam Latkin who spent his summers with his wife in a train car on a side track under the trees in the little park beside the train station. There was also a restaurant in the building with a band that played every weekend for awhile. Many special events were held there by various groupas as well.

There was a tourist railway, the Santa Fe Southern that operated between Lamy and Santa Fe between 2004 and 2014. The newest tourist venture, Sky Railway, began offering Adventure Trains in December, 2021 with a dragon-painted locomotive.

The Lamy railway station is still used twice a day (one train going east and one west) as an Amtrak station.