ALL ABOARD: Seasonal Toy Train Exhibit Celebrates Locomotives in Style
L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library hosts huge model train exhibit
Kelly Carlson, photos by Andrea Paulseth |
Take a trip back to the 1900s and experience the golden age of railroad transportation: Train cars connected for miles, puffs of steam, and a howling whistle of “CHOO CHOO” lets you know when trains are coming and going! At the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire, just add a sprinkle of snow and witness a range of engines taking to the tracks.
With 448 square feet in the third-floor Riverview Room devoted to the models, folks who enter can expect original and reproduction trains that replicate real locomotives that ran between 1906 and 1940. There will be three trains running at each exhibit with Tuesday and Thursday evenings featuring a nighttime exhibit with light-up trains. The exhibit will run between Nov. 25-Dec. 31 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (with a special opening on Friday, Nov. 25). Tuesday and Thursday hours are 4:30-7:30pm, while on Saturdays the trains will run 1-5pm (although the exhibit – and the library – will be closed Dec. 24).
Sure to be a delight for all ages, admission fees for adults are $5, ages 5-17 are $2, and ages 0-4 are free. The event will by the run by a group of volunteers called the Friends of the Library and is operated by the Standard Gauge Model Association.
“The admission collected will be used for programs and services that the library provides to the community … that are not funded by the library’s annual budget,” said Stacy Yearous, program and development coordinator for Friends of the Library.
During the same hours of the first five days of the train exhibit, stop at the library’s third-level Innovation Lab to find The Holiday Book Sale, too! “It will feature holiday books and media items along with other fiction, nonfiction, media items, and children/young adult books,” Yearous said. “The sale is a great opportunity to find a book for a special person in one’s life.”
Grab the whole family for some extra historical fun, and don’t forget to get a library card on your way out.
For more information and confirmed times of events, visit lephillips.librarycalendar.com.
