Model Trains at the Brandywine River Museum

By Victoria Miller

If you're looking for an incredible model train display, look no further than The Brandywine River Museum's annual holiday train display. Located in suburban Philadelphia in Chadds Ford, PA., the museum showcases an awesome train display every holiday season. If you are a train lover and live near or are planning to visit the Philadelphia area during the holiday season, you should make it a point to check out this incredible display.

The museum is famous for their extensive collection of Wyeth art (original paintings by N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew and his grandson Jamie dominate the wall space in this museum-- in fact, an entire floor of the museum is dedicated to the Wyeth family artwork) but every November the museum opens up its second floor to showcase their gigantic model train display. Usually the display can be viewed during the entire holiday season-- generally for the week before Thanksgiving through the first week of January.

Traditionally dubbed "A Brandywine Christmas" the model train display is just one of several special exhibits that the museum offers during the holiday season (other displays include antique dolls and dollhouses and vintage holiday book illustrations). Features of the O-gauge train display include five running trains and a fifty plus car freight train. There are a couple thousand feet of track and a realistic looking miniature village complete with lit Christmas trees. The Herr's potato chip factory is part of the landscape, as are a neighborhood of houses, a church and skaters frolicking on a pond. There's even a mountain that includes a Christmas tree farm and if you look really close you may just see Santa's sleigh flying high in the sky. Little ones will love this display and there is even a real live conductor on site.

The museum is located on US Route 1 in Chadds Ford, PA and it opens at 9:30 AM every day except Christmas day. The day after Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year's are generally the most crowded days, so try to get there early to avoid the crowds. For more information on the train display you can contact the museum at 610-388-2700.