The suspension of Yunnan’s narrow-gauge railways has led to spatial decay at stations and their surrounding regions, accompanied by cultural fragmentation and economic stagnation, underscoring the pressing need for context-specific strategies to conserve railway heritage and facilitate adaptive reuse. These strategies aim to advance holistic heritage preservation and foster sustainable socio-spatial development along the railway corridor. Focusing on the Gejiu-Bisezhai-Shiping Railway, a frontrunner in Yunnan’s railway heritage revitalization, this study proposes three typological conservation and revitalization models through empirical investigations: (1) Dual urban rehabilitation model for resource-depleted industrial cities (Gejiu station): leveraging urban functional retrofitting and ecological restoration, this approach repurposes decommissioned stations into commercial hubs and lakeside greenways, reactivating regional economic dynamics while elevating urban spatial performance. (2) Railway heritage cultural park model (Bisezhai station): centered on heritage integrity conservation, this framework synthesizes cultural-tourism assets with community co-creation mechanisms, generating immersive cultural consumption landscapes that drive regenerative development of rural settlements. (3) Heritage railway tourism operation model (Jianshui-Shiping section): reactivating discontinued rail lines through heritage-themed sightseeing trains, this model catalyzes integrated territorial development by spatially reknitting stations, urban-rural clusters, and natural landscapes, achieving visitor flow optimization and high-quality cultural tourism industrialization. Spanning heterogeneous geomorphological and socio-economic zones, Yunnan’s narrow-gauge railways demand differentiated conservation protocols. Through a critical analysis of implementation efficacy and refinement strategies across these three models, this research constructs a transferable framework for revitalizing other railway segments in Yunnan and provides methodological references for activating railway heritage nationwide.