For many, toy trains are holiday magic.
Children’s eyes grow wide with wonder watching the sparkling lights and colors race by, while adults wistfully recall holiday trains from their own youth.
You can see it all again this holiday season, right here in our area.
Each December, several local venues offer toy train displays for enthusiasts of all ages, including the Elizabethtown Public Library, Whitaker Center in downtown Harrisburg and Fort Hunter Park in Susquehanna Township.
All aboard!
Tradition in E-Town
The Train Guys, a loosely knit group of local train enthusiasts, have been setting up holiday train displays at the Elizabethtown Public Library since the current building opened in 2001. Before that, the group set up displays for three years at a bank that previously occupied the site.
Train Guys Craig Coble and Mike Myers said it takes about 500 man-hours to set up the display. Work started on Oct. 17 in preparation for the Dec. 1 opening. This year’s exhibit features about 20 tracks on a 18-by-65-foot table and a 12-by-20-foot floor area. Children and kids at heart can push as many as 50 buttons to start tracks and operate accessories.
It wasn’t always this big.
For the library’s first year, the Train Guys set up five or six tracks in the facility’s small community room. The following year, they installed about 15 tracks in the largest community room. By the third year, they were using the entire length of the building.
“Just like nature abhors a vacuum, trains abhor empty spaces,” Coble joked.
Part of the setup is dedicated to the histories of toy trains and the railroad. Another section takes on a theme of historic Elizabethtown neighborhoods, Myers said. Yet another part is devoted to town fun. Visitors can spot historic models of the former Kline Chocolate factory, the former Buch Manufacturing Company and the old Market Street firehouse, to name a few.
Each year, the Train Guys offer a limited-edition local business train for sale to the general public. This year, the group is selling about 90 of the Klein’s Chocolate model, but many are already spoken for, Myers said. Information about the sale is available at the library.
For a third year, the Train Guys are including standard gauge trains in a small portion of the display. The large metal trains were manufactured from 1900 to 1935 and are considered a rarity.
“It’s very unusual to see the standard gauge,” Coble noted. “The Great Depression killed them off. Their market was limited to those with higher income.”
Organizers said that as many as 4,000 spectators are expected to file through the train exhibit by year’s end. At times, the line to the exhibit curls out the library’s doors and into the parking lot.
“The look on the 3-year-old kid’s face when they see the trains is what I like best about all this,” Myers said. “For me, it wouldn’t be Christmas without these trains. Christmas is about gifts. This is our gift to the community.”
“We just love having them here,” added Aimee Nelson, the library’s youth services team leader.
Nelson noted that several other activities take place there in December, including a children’s Christmas shop, story times, a visit from Santa and “Miracle on Market Street.” The library also is hosting a raffle for two train sets from Barry’s Train Shop in Elizabethtown.
The Elizabethtown Public Library is located at 10 S. Market St., Elizabethtown. Beginning Dec. 1, regular hours for the library’s annual train display are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6 to 8 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., through Dec. 31. A $2 per person donation is requested.
The display also is open on Dec. 11, 5 to 8 p.m., during Elizabethtown’s Second Friday event and on Dec. 31, 5 to 8 p.m. Information about private showings is available at 717-367-7467.
Trains and Trees
Whitaker Center has “always had some sort of holiday display” since opening 16 years ago, said Joe Easton, the center’s exhibits manager. The center started doing toy train exhibits around eight years ago.
“The exhibit ties in with the Whitaker Center’s mission of being a cultural center of science and arts for the area,” said Ashlee Hurley, the center’s director of marketing and sales. “The art is the decorated trees. The science is the engineering of the trains and how they work.”
This year’s “Trains and Trees” exhibit at Whitaker’s Harsco Science Center will feature 15 toy train tracks running concurrently “of every scale there is,” and, for the first time, a hand-crank track for young children to ride, Easton continued.
The exhibit also includes a glittering array of decorated trees and garlands placed throughout the gallery and topping each train platform.
“The best part of this is seeing the guests come in and their eyes light up. It really is a Christmas wonderland,” Easton noted.
Easton, who has been with Whitaker Center for two years, said it takes him about a month to set up the entire display. He does most of the work by himself. However, even after the tracks and trees are all set up, his work isn’t done.
“A train engine only lasts about three weeks when you run it eight hours a day for six days a week,” he said. “I guarantee you that I will make a trip to the train store every week (for replacement parts) until the end of the year.”
“Trains and Trees” continues through Jan. 3 at Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, 222 Market St., Harrisburg. The exhibit is located in the Gloria M. Olewine Gallery of the Harsco Science Center and is open during the center’s regular hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The exhibit is included in admission to the Science Center: adults, $16; juniors ages 3 to 17, $12.50; members, free.
Other December events include the Central PA Youth Ballet presents “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” the film “A Christmas Carol 3D,” “Holidays with The Manhattan Transfer” and more. For details, visit www.whitakercenter.org.
Memories at Fort Hunter
The Keystone Model Railroad Historical Society has set up holiday toy train displays at Fort Hunter Park’s Centennial Barn in Susquehanna Township since 1995. The Historical Society, which is based in Mechanicsburg, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving railroad history in the area, as well as building and running model train displays.
Previously, Fort Hunter Park set up a Lionel train display in the Fort Hunter Mansion, but discontinued it because “the tour guides would run them too fast,” noted Fort Hunter Park Manager Julia Hair.
Over the years, the society’s display has grown in size from 2-by-4 feet to 28-by-8 feet, said Dennis Shollenberger, the organization’s vice president. The continuing theme is a central Pennsylvania landscape that depicts farmlands, mountains, camping and communities, but each year, “there’s always something new,” Hair said.
“We always try to make it a little different each time,” said Historical Society Treasurer Bob Sheriff. “We put in a drive-in movie theater one year, then we added a Thomas the Tank Engine for the kids. We try to make little changes that people can look for.”
It takes club volunteers about two hours to set up the display’s basic layout, followed by a week of fine-tuning details, Shollenberger said.
“This year, we’re rebuilding an entire module,” he said. “If a module shows its age, we replace it. We’ll have a new building that looks like a shoe and a few other new elements.”
Sheriff said he enjoys watching spectators’ reactions as they file through the display each year.
“You see the same people from year to year,” he said. “It’s sort like a friendship that you get to have with them.”
Shollenberger agreed.
“It’s always fun to watch the young and old,” he said. “The younger ones like running around and seeing Thomas. The older people like remembering.”
Fort Hunter Park is located at 5300 N. Front St., Harrisburg. Fort Hunter Park’s Toy Train Exhibit continues through Dec. 20, Saturdays and Sundays only, in the Centennial Barn. Hours are 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Also in December, Fort Hunter offers “Christmas at Fort Hunter,” a “Festival of Trees,” a “Craft Reunion,” a greens sale, a brass concert and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus. For details about these and other holiday events, visit www.forthunter.org.
