The Toy Train Museum, Strasburg, PA

As a member of The Train Collectors Association since 1982, I feel privileged to live nearby the focal point of the TCA, the Toy Train Museum.  The museum is located at 300 Paradise Lane, in Paradise Township near Strasburg, PA.  It was built as a replica of a Victorian train station, and houses some of the finest collections of toy trains, buildings and accessories in the world.  The museum is open to the public for a small admission fee (free to TCA members).

Collections of Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, Ives, Marklin and many other famous brands of trains are on display, along with railroadiana from the earliest days to the present.  You can see early cast iron Victorian trains, large standard guage trains from the 1920s, wooden trains made during the steel shortages of WWII, postwar O-guage, and later HO (half-O scale). 

Many of the displays are real operating dioramas of railroad stations and small towns with miniature cars, people, countryside and realistic sound effects.  Adults will feel nostalgia as they revisit toys that they haven't seen since their  childhoods.  The kids will enjoy the experience, too, and you'd be surprised how they enjoy the earlier toys!  The Toy Train Museum is open daily starting May 1 through the warm months.