In the MAY 2008 CTT there is a listing of 38 toy train layouts you can visit.
If you have visited them, please post your reviews here.
The closest two locations that I have visited are The Train Barn in Portage, Michigan and the National New York Central Museum in Elkhart, Indiana.
The Train Barn is in Portage, Michigan, in Kalamazoo County, which makes it a short trip away. The first floor of the barn is the store and museum section. Seth Giem built the large O Gauge layout in the upstairs of the barn. It is only open on Saturdays. The major elements of the layout were built and rebuilt by Seth over a period of 20 years. It contains a lot of intricate wood and metal bridges and trestles that the trains race over. There are many nice scratchbuilt buildings that have to be seen. There are so many scenic forms that it is almost like watching a train race across the country. The trains have a long route to run. It is a great layout to see.
The National New York Central Museum in Elkhart, Indiana is a long trip for me, but I have seen it a few times. It is a good O Gauge layout, considering the financial problems caused by a previous president of the Museum. What is there is an attempt to compress the tracks of the New York Central east to west mainline into a small space. The size makes it worth a look. The operators do not have the money for new, more realistic operating signals. The National NYC Museum need more support if they are to stay open. In another room is a large O Scale Roundhouse model that has some static steam locos on the track. It is right next to the former NYC tracks that are now operated by Norfolk Southern, so there are always full size trains to watch. Catch it while it is open. If you have any NYC or PC O Gauge locomotives and rolling stock that you do not want, they could use them in their rotations. It would be great in NS and CSX got together to manage and imp
The layout, Cincinnati in Motion is probably the best S gauge layout in the country. It is highly detailed and includes many old scenes from Cincinnati. The trains that run on the exhibit are all in period. It was built by professionals for the museum. Just off of I-75.
The best layouts, that I have seen are the layouts in Balboa Park in San Diego. My last visit to Balboa was in 2001 and every layout was great. The Lionel layout is new since my visit, but the old one was great and just plain fun to see it operate.
Smoky Mtn. Trains in Bryson City, NC has an all Lionel exhibit and layout. The layout is run by command control. I could spend the whole day in Bryson exploring the museum, taking photos, shopping in the train store, riding the trains, eating, breathing, and sleeping. Find a place on the south side of the mountains to stay.
Chuck and I visited the Kruger Street Station in Wheeling, WV last fall. The display of Marx and Lionel is great, but the layout needs improvement. It is big, but doesn’t have character. Just off I-70.
Oglebay Park in Wheeling was also left off the list.
I have been to Roadside America in Shartlestville. It is huge, fun and whimsical. Some parts of the layout are detailed and other parts of the layout need some work. They have a small store in front of the building. Just off I-78 near Cabelas.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation was great when I was there many years ago, but I don’t remember seeing a layout. I remember the J Steam Engine on display. I have seen this beautiful engine pulling specials through Ohio in the late '80s.
The Roseyville Train Barn and Dog Kennel…Not worth the time or the money.
Andrew, While it is not on the list, but is in the back schedule, The New York Society of Model Engineers in Carlstadt, NJ is a great scale model layout to see. They are not open to the public the whole year long, but do have a schedule that is posted on their web site. This is located in Northern New Jersey, about 20 minutes from NYC. It would be well worth a drive, especially if you arrange to visit some area train stores.
Rich, I have seen several great layouts that didn’t make the list. I suspect that they were just going through the resources they have on hand and the plan for the future would be a on-line list that could be added to. That would be great! IF you were going to a given area, just jump on CTT’s web site, type in the area and get a list of active train stores, layouts to visit, and perhaps places to railfan, all in one search!
Dennis
PS: I was looking over a few web sites on NJ fires/and Fire Departments, they have a “news wire” of jobs and photos from them. They also have information regarding fire departments. One interesting story was a fire chief for a vol. dept. that got a dui when he took one of the engines on a joy ride following a party. Anyway, I will try to get the site for you. It is something like firstresponder/nj or something. It was on one of the Hackensack Fire web sites.
I was just there this past fall and spoke with the operator (we arrived 1/2 hour prior to opening). The reason the layout has not been updated is they want to keep it in the condition it was in when the builder completed it. It has not changed one bit since I was a child back in the 70’s.
I have also been to the Ogleby display which is quite interesting. They have one of the few real water rivers on a layout that I have seen, and a river boat as well. I don’t believe they have updated this layout in many years either.
There is also an HO scale layout North of Pittsburgh, PA in Richland. The Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum http://www.wpmrm.org/ is quite a site to see. When I was last there about 12 years ago they had operating track and trains, but the scenery wasn’t complete.
This is the link directly to the TrainWorks of Jacksonville layout section.
Since it is a store with layouts, I wonder if the only way to make it economically viable is to at least have some retail with the layouts. If not a retail operation, there has to be admission. If there is an admission fee, then expectations will be high. With higher expectations the layout better have some very strong concepts that are presented in an excellent manner.
Door is always open and the light is always on. All CTT folks are welcome. [wife just made me finish the other guest bedroom, Time Warner fixed the room with cable today]. [#welcome][:D]
The McCormick Railroad Park in Scottsdale,Arizona has,if I remember correctly,layouts in all popular guages and scales.They also have live steam operations in several gauges.The live steam does not run during summer months.
The Oglebay Park layout has a very large steel mill model.
At Alamagordo,New Mexico there is a “museum” that has small layouts in most scales.Right behind this is the SP[UP?] line into El Paso with around thirty trains a day.
Besides the very nice layout at the Smoky Mountain Railroad,I think they have on display almost everything Lionel made from about 1946 to present.There is also a large mixture of pre-war stuff.
I’ve been to the Choo Choo Barn in Strasburg many times, since I live one hour away. It’s a first class, large layout that is improved-upon (if THAT"S possible) every year during the Jan. close-down.
Also the TCA Toy Train Musuem in Strasburg…many small/med layouts in HO, S, O, Standard, and G, with hands-on operating for viewers.
there’s several good toy train places to visit (already) mentioned and even a toy train museum in SE Pa. All are worthwhile. SE Pa seems to be the toy train center of the universe for some strange reason
We ran every public, year-round O/S/standard gauge layout we received info from - if it was left off it, they must not have submitted a profile. We actually added the 38th layout after the story was designed by the art dept.
BTW I made this sticky so more people will see the reviews of the venues.
A couple to keep in mind: While I have not been there myself, there is one in North Georgia that a guy has in his house…it’s huge! It has been on “Great Toy Train Layouts” and I have seen it in some magazines. The guy has a scale mock up of Stone Mountain with fireworks and all! He opens it during the year to the public and has boy scouts take admission fees which are donated to local charities.
Another layout, though it is HO is at the Chattanooga Choo Choo. It is detailed and big. I believe that one of the Model Railroad organizations is located in Chattanooga and has a museum there. They also have a couple of 1:1 scale excursion railroads in the area.
You can visit the Bob Keller special at CTT. I is worse than my Soundstop Desert Prairie layout. [(-D] Just fly Nawth to the frozen tundra [actully was pretty good weather while I was there], drive a little north [I think it was north] of Milwaukee and visit CTT.
BTW: big one in Wilson NC. Upstairs at the Train Barn. Think layout section is only open on Sat.
I’m suprise that Roadside America was not on the list. It’s right outside of Reading, Pa. I haven’t been there since I was a young but it left quite a impression. If anyone can tell me if it still is open?
Roadside America is still open to the best of my knowledge & is located closer to Hamburg then Reading PA or to be more precise it is located in Shartlesville PA along I-78, just off of old route 22, west of Hamburg a few miles.
I had grandparents who used to live near Centerville & Dauberville PA, small towns north of Leesport PA, I know the area rather well near Roadside America. Was up to Reading about four years ago.