After a three year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Transit Museum, housed inside Grand Central Terminal, is back with its annual holiday train show, an incredibly detailed display of model trains and miniature buildings. The show has a distinctly New York City theme, starting off with a replica of Grand Central itself and its sprawling train tracks underneath. The show is relatively small, and the museum employees try hard to keep traffic flowing, but you can still see the intricate design and its layers upon layers of easter eggs. From a hidden subway platform to the Ghostbusters car to the M34-SBS, the diorama extends beyond just the trains themselves and truly creates a snapshot of New York City.
As you progress further through the exhibit, it shifts and becomes a small town setting complete with a snow-capped mountain and tiny stores scattered throughout. Fitting for a transit museum, the Lionel trains that ride across the scenery are all near perfect replicas of actual trains, right down to the sounds of their whistles as they go around the mountain. While train enthusiasts, like many of the young kids I saw at the show, can fully entertain themselves watching the model trains zoom by, you don’t have to know or even care much about trains to enjoy it.
The exhibit is small, but packed with detail — nearly every block has a secret hiding within it — and it can take a few passes to catch it all. I went with my mom, and we spent the whole time around pointing out minute details to one another, most of which ended up being things the other would never have caught. From a former president on a front porch to a subway station far below eye level, the display is a labor of love, to both the craft and the city it depicts.
The show has been an annual event, mostly uninterrupted, for nearly twenty years. It’s also not the only show of its kind in New York City — the New York Botanical Gardens hosts its own impressive one every year. It’s much bigger, sprawling across the entirety of their greenhouse building. It’s also relatively expensive to get tickets, however ($35 per ticket), while the Grand Central show has always been free. This year, the Transit Museum planned to charge admission for the first time but a large donation at the start of the season eliminated that, allowing the exhibit to be free for all.
While the Transit Museum has this outpost in Grand Central Terminal, the bulk of their collections is mainly stationed in a retired subway station in Brooklyn . The museum is home to old subway cars, trolleys, and mock stations from throughout the years. It describes its aim as “telling and preserving the stories of mass transportation,” a mission that it definitely brings to the train show. The typical Lionel trains that zoom around the tracks are accurate models, but so are the MTA buses and trains stashed around the exhibit. The New York portion of the model is littered with New Yorkers going about their days using the MTA. Parts of the other sections had this detail as well; I was sure that I saw one of the Bee Line buses that park along Bedford Park Boulevard tucked into a corner. While they may not be historical, these dioramas and portions of the train show are snapshots, much like the trolleys and trains at the museum.
I decided to write this article (and take a trip to the museum) remembering trips there when I was really young. I remember being absolutely transfixed by the trains zooming by, and by the tiny details right at my eye level. If you’re taller than the average five or six year old you’ll have to stoop to see these tiny details; I promise they’re still worth it. I was honestly surprised, when I walked into the museum this year, by how small the whole thing was — in my early childhood memories, the trains and buildings stretched on forever.
As I walked the slow loop around the display, I saw kids, ranging from a baby being held up to the glass to seven or eight year olds running around, watching the trains go by, completely fascinated. It’s a cool exhibit for anyone, but is definitely (and rightfully so) geared towards young kids.
It’s also decidedly a love letter to New York City, the city that the vast majority of visitors are from. Since the show is a relatively small event, it rarely ends up on lists of tourist attractions, meaning that most of the people lined up outside are New Yorkers who live nearby or happen to be passing through the Terminal. It stands in stark contrast to many of New York’s other holiday attractions that draw millions of tourists every year — while busy, it’s a quieter experience, and (especially now after the holidays) this allows you to really soak the exhibit in.
The New York Transit Museum does an excellent job with the train show. It’s perfect for what it is; a small exhibit tucked along the wayside, telling the stories of New York. Some of the exhibit’s characters are fictional, such as the Ghostbusters, Doc and his Delorean, but some, however simple, are very real, like a packed train platform or someone sprinting across the street to catch the bus. The beauty of the show isn’t in its scale but rather its detail and deep ties to New York City. The train show is still open (their website states it will close in “Early 2024” but timeout.com states that it will be up until February 24th, 2024), and I would highly recommend stopping by to see it in person.
From a former president on a front porch to a subway station far below eye level, the display is a labor of love, to both the craft and the city it depicts.