A family watching the UP pull a freight train on our HO Layout. Dad is pointing something out to his 2 year old child Thomas the Train runs on the Track, below ‘Dad’s’ arm.
Model railroading is a major part of the museum displays. When the New Braunfels Historical Railroad and Modelers Society, was founded in 1985, we were just a group of modelers. Modeling has remained a major focus within our organization. Over the years, more and more emphasis was given to developing a full Museum. Our membership is proud to share all of our railroad displays. Children of all ages love to participate in the development, operating, and watching the model trains, as they depict the operations of railroads. The Museum houses a permanent HO scale layout, the Joske Department Store (downtown, San Antonio) display, an HO circus (circa 1910), and an N Scale layout, available for viewing to all visitors of the museum. As is the case with most model railroads, they are always a work in progress. Children enjoy seeing all of the trains in operation. Thomas the Train is usually running on his own HO track under our HO scale model railroad. Thomas runs at a level where children ages 0-6 do not have to stand on ladders and are thrilled as Thomas and his friends pass by. The Museum also owns a number of N scale NTrak modules, which are used primarily as traveling exhibits at area train shows. These are also used during special occasions and events at the Museum. Plans are being considered to add a permanent G (Garden) Scale and Z Scale layouts either in 2013 or 2014. During the ‘Kids Fun Days’, Kids of all ages are able to run either our Lionel (O Scale) or American Flyer (S Scale) Trains, and become a “Junior Engineer”. Also during our Kids Fun Days, we operate our G Scale traveling layout.
Our N Scale Layout inside our box car.
N Scale Modeling is the second most popular Model Scale. The New Braunfels Model Railroad Museum provides a 28 foot long N scale model railroad, for guests to view, inside of our box car. Young kids like this model the best, at 33″ tall, the base layout is low enough for most of them to see, without being help by their parents. It is not unusual for the children to run from one end of the layout to the other. They love to see the various trains, as they travel around the layout. NBRRM currently runs both DC and DCC locomotives. The layout depicts a typical train operation, with sidings, depots, cities, industry, towns, and other scenes. You can display so much of our history in an N Scale model. During the ‘Kids Fun Days’ and during our Kids Birthday Parties, with enough volunteers present, we open the box car. At one birthday party, a five year old boy, would not leave the N Scale Model, to go to his own party, in our dining car. Our volunteer engineer had to put the train to ‘sleep’, in order for the kid to go back to the party. When the boy again sneeked into the box car, the engineer allowed the boy to visit, and then once again put the train to sleep. This happened five times, during the party. This is just one example of how much the kids love to watch our N Scale Model Trains.