San Diego Model Railroad Museum ~ December 27, 2006

The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is the largest indoor model railroad display in the world! The individual HO and N scale layouts are also among largest of their type. The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is located on the lower level of the Casa De Balboa on El Prado in Balboa Park.

The mission of the San Diego Model Railroad Museum is to preserve the heritage of railroading through a series of miniature representations of California railroads. The model railroads are constructed by volunteer club members.

Train Layouts

Cabrillo Southwestern – This O-Scale exhibit is a freelance model of an imaginary prototype and features an electric trolley line. The layout is being built in place to give visitors a first-hand view of model railroad construction.

Pacific Desert Lines – An N-Scale Exhibit for which club members have won awards for their meticulous craftsmanship and painstakingly realistic details. For example, the model of San Diego's Santa Fe depot was constructed using actual blueprints of the building. The Carlsbad power plant has fiber optic strobe lights on top of its chimney.

San Diego & Arizona Eastern – This HO-Scale exhibit features an impressive 10- foot high model of the Carriso Gorge in eastern San Diego County and the Goat Canyon trestle, which was the largest timber railroad trestle in the world at the time of its construction in 1932.

Tehachapi Pass – An HO-Scale exhibit of Tehachapi Pass, which is still considered the busiest single-track freight railroad in the U.S.

Toy Train Gallery – This interactive exhibit features 3-Rail, Lionel and Brio layouts. The trains have realistic horns, whistles, engine sounds, and even smoke. A camera car broadcasts a real-time video onto a color television screen so that you can see the scene from an engineer’s point of view. There is also an underground coal mine section where kids can push buttons to operate the coal cars.

Lego City Visiting Exhibit – They really should have a permanent display of Lego trains, but luckily we just happened to go there at the time of a Lego City Visiting Exhibit which began on November 21st and ends on January 26th. This was pretty neat since we weren’t going to Legoland this year so the kids got to see a Lego exhibit anyway! This display included the usual cute details for observant viewers such as R2D2, Spiderman, etc.

TIPS: Be prepared to pick up your little one often or carry him or her on your shoulders throughout the museum. While there are steps and platforms at strategic locations, and the Toy Train Gallery is built at a child’s eye level, they will also want to see portions of the displays that are located at an adult’s eye level. Speaking of kids, we learned from experience that if you don’t like crowds it’s best to visit the museum on a school day, not on a weekend or during a school holiday. There is a snack bar conveniently located just upstairs from the museum. You can schedule School and Community Group Tour admissions, birthday parties, and they also offer summer camps.

WEBSITE: The San Diego Model Railroad Museum’s website at www.sdmodelrailroadm.com has an extensive online model railroad library, exhibit information and photo gallery, and a kids corner with a Virtual Railway. Guide your train, switch the track up, and control its route. How many different ways can you send the train around the track?