The Grand Central Holiday Train Show
in New York is one of several free displays.
in New York is one of several free displays.
Posted on 11/23/2008 7:42:19 PM PST by Coleus
These days, if you ask children what Christmas is to them, you would hear phrases like "Santa Claus," "presents" and "trees." Ask a child growing up in the first half of the 20th century, and you would have heard "trains" — meaning the miniature kind chugging around the tree on Christmas morning. Today, model train clubs and other groups keep that spirit alive with holiday train shows."If you talk to older people, they'll tell you that it's somewhat of a tradition, putting a train around the Christmas tree," said Dennis Alderman, president of the Ramapo Valley Model Railroad Club.
Jerry Calabrese, CEO of Lionel Model Trains, agrees. "In the 1920s [through the] 1960s, trains were ubiquitous as the Xbox is now. Trains were a big part of family entertainment, so it was natural for families to put trains around their Christmas trees." Many railway clubs, including two in North Haledon and one in Carlstadt, hold major open houses every holiday season. "We have gotten crowded in the past, with 250 to 300 people a day, so we've had to extend our hours," said Alderman of the Ramapo Valley club, who says its displays are open to the public year-round on its meeting nights, Tuesdays and Fridays at the Ho-Ho-Kus VFW building. The club's 26 full-time members constantly "fine-tune" the 30-by-30-foot permanent layout. "The layout is never complete; there's always work to be done as newer things in the industry come out," said Alderman.
Lionel, which will debut its Metro-North and Subway train series this year at several displays in New York and New Jersey, has been at the helm of the model trains industry since 1900. "Lionel is deeply embedded in American pop culture, like Coca-Cola," Calabrese said. For more information on model railroads and events across the country, visit the Model Railroad News Web site at modelrailroadnews.com. Here's a list of shows in the area:
* Lionel Train Show at Gateway Center: Through Dec. 30. The Atrium at Gateway Center, 1 Gateway Center, Newark. Three round displays featuring seven Lionel train sets, including the Polar Express. The Atrium can be accessed from Mulberry Street or through Penn Station. Free.
* New York Society of Model Engineers' 2008 Holiday Exhibition: Friday through Sunday and Nov. 28–30, Dec. 5–7. 7 to 10 p.m. Fridays, 1 to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. 341 Hoboken Road, Carlstadt. Organized in 1926 in New York City, the society moved to Hoboken's Lackawanna Terminal in the 1940s before relocating in the 1950s to its present home. There will be both HO and O scale railroads running, as well as a display of tail signs from yesteryear and a souvenir shop. Admission $5, children $1, children under 5 free. 201-939-9212 or www.modelengineers.org.
* New York Botanical Garden's 16th annual Holiday Train Show: Sunday through Jan. 11. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 28–29, Dec. 6, 13, 20, 22–23, 26–31 and Jan. 1–2. 3 p.m. closing Dec. 5 and 24, closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Bronx River Parkway and Fordham Road, Bronx. "Garden-gauge" trains, circus cars, high-speed passenger trains and others can be seen traveling between major New York City replicas, including the Statue of Liberty, the original Yankee Stadium and the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center, all made from plant parts. Admission $20, students/seniors $18, children $10; advance tickets recommended. 718-817-8700 or www.nybg.org.
* Grand Central Holiday Train Show: Monday to Jan. 19. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street, Manhattan. Multiple O-gauge model train sets, including Lionel's new railroad and subway cars, travel to Santa's workshop in the North Pole. Free admission. 212-878-0106 or mta.info/mta/museum/whatsnew.htm.
* Garden State Model Railway Club's 51st Annual Open House: Nov. 28–30, Dec. 5–7 and 12–14. 7 to 10 p.m. Fridays, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. 575 High Mountain Road, North Haledon. See the Santa Claus Express and other displays, and operate a scale locomotive. Admission $5, children free with adult. 201-387-8716 or www.gsmrrclub.org.
* Model Engineers Railroad Club of North Jersey's Annual Open House: Nov. 28–30, Dec. 5–7 and 12–14. 7 to 10 p.m. Fridays, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. 575 High Mountain Road, North Haledon. Featuring 3,000 feet of hand-laid track, running through a model North Jersey. Admission $5, children free with adult. Contact Paul Harbord at 973-427-4905 before 9 p.m. or visit www.angelfire.com/nj4/merrcnj.
* The Station at Citigroup Center 2008: Nov. 28 to Jan. 2. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Christmas Day. The Atrium at Citigroup Center, 153 E. 53rd St., Manhattan. Now in its 21st year, Citigroup's annual model train exhibit features a Victorian station building where O, S and HO scale model trains run daily, stopping in Weehawken, Nyack and the Hudson Valley. Free admission. 212-559-1747 or www.dunhamstudios.com/cititour.htm.
* Ramapo Valley Model Railroad Club's Holiday Open House: Nov. 29, Dec. 13–14 and 28. 1 to 4 p.m. Washington Elm VFW Post 192, 620 Cliff St., Ho-Ho-Kus. The layout includes multiple levels of tracks and trains with bridges and waterfalls, six running wind turbine farms and a drive-in theater that plays John Wayne movies. A certain jolly old man might stop by! Admission $4, children under 12 $1, family $10. 845-359-0746 or e-mail pm1222@verizon.net.
* Greenberg's Train and Toy Show: Nov. 29–30. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. New Jersey Expo Center, 97 Sunfield Ave., Edison. The traveling model train show offers layouts from a variety of local model railroad clubs, such as the Raritan Valley Hi-Railers and the Staten Island Society of Model Railroaders, as well as a hobby marketplace of more than 550 tables. Admission $7, good for both days; children under 12 free. 630-279-4087 or www.greenbergshows.com.
Today at church we got buttons...
ITSOKTOSAY
MERRY CHRISTMAS
He could be a train robber and blow tracks to stop the train. LOL!
Somewhere in the attic I have my brother’s l938 Lionel train set, some cars in original boxes. It is all I have of him, and remember as a child one Christmas eve having trouble getting to sleep, not only from the excitement, but because of the noise coming from the sunroom downstairs. My father, it turned out, played with the train long after getting it set up under the tree.
Precious memories of long ago.
The first holiday season after I married in 1985, I asked my husband what family Christmas traditions he wanted to have. He blinked his eyes innocently and said he always wanted to have a model train going around the tree. I figured it was cute and then he bought an LGB scale train for the tree. Later it kept our little ones away from the tree (the large engine could knock them down), for the most part, and entertained them as our girls used the train, its station and a dollhouse to “move” the family from house to house. Later they had an LGB scale gondola from the train station to “Stair Landing Mountain”. Our tree became the center of their social lives as they were growing up and kids came from the neighborhood to play with the train. As preschoolers, they would see display Christmas trees in stores and ask where the train was.
Little did I know my husband was a covert train collector. He had had to mothball his hobby while getting his education and now it came back full force. Now I have a bumper sticker on my home office file that says, “Pray for me. My husband collects model trains.” LOL Once my husband helped my daughter do a presentation on electrical substations with a HO-scale layout of a neighborhood with houses, factories, a substation, cars, and electric trains, complete with wiring strung from building to poles and a catenary for the train (European style). You should have seen me and my daughter hauling that mini-layout through the schoolyard with boys trailing behind us. Even her male teacher was drooling over it.
There is still a fascination with trains as the train shows my husband assists with always draw oohs and awes from the kids here in California. (I grew up on a Union Pacific branchline and I actually thought all train engines were yellow and gray in the same way that police cars are black and white and fire engines are red. Boy, did I get an education quickly.)
Bump....
Christmas of 1962 my dad bought a Lionel train set for my 3 brothers and me. That was the only gift we received that year but we loved it! I remember it shot a rocket out of one car that came down with a small parachute attached.
You could always buy an old “beater” set and do the Gomez Addams bit of running two at each other and crashing on the bridge with the firecracker explosion underneath it!
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