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Museum highlights history in miniature
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Kiyan Dhanidina, 5 from Burke, Va., watches one of the model trains pass on the tracks of the Mason-Dixon Large Scale display recently at the annual Holiday Festival of Trains at the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - B&O Railroad Museum’s Holiday Festival of Trains harkens back to Baltimore’s train garden tradition.
“We’ve been doing this event for about eight years,” said Amy Getz, the museum’s director of marketing and public relations. “It’s gotten bigger each year. Trains are just synonymous with the holiday season.”
Each week, a different visiting toy or model train layout is displayed. The Western Maryland Railway Historical Society HO Scale Modular Group will exhibit its modules today and Sunday.
“The society is an organization that seeks to preserve the memory of the Western railway in particular, promote the railway in general, and preserve the history of all railroading, and how it would pertain to Western Maryland,” said Mel Agne, chairman of the group. “And one of the ways that we inform the public and preserve that legacy is through model railroad representation.”
The society’s model is in HO scale, which is 1:87 scale of the size of an actual train, Agne said. “We chose that size because we’re trying to represent as much of the original Western Maryland railroad as possible, and yet still have large enough details so that people can appreciate the prototype and the fidelity of the detail.”
Agne, who has played with trains his entire life, said they remind him of his father, who died when Agne was 12.
“Trains for me are a connection to my dad. But for others, it’s a combination of many things. Just because you get older doesn’t mean you have to stop having fun,” he said. “I think a lot of people are fascinated because trains are such an intricate piece of history, yet, by and large go unnoticed today. We’re often attracted to things that go unnoticed.”
Getz agreed. “I think certainly a lot of people grew up with model trains, put them around the Christmas tree. Some come down to see what’s different, and a lot of people come more than once.”
IF YOU GO
Holiday Festival of Trains at the B&O
Children and families can see Santa on weekends, when he visits the festival by train from the North Pole.
WHERE: B&O Railroad Museum, 901 W. Pratt St., Baltimore
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 30
TICKETS: $8 to $14
INFO: 410-752-2490
ecampbell@baltimoreexaminer.com
