Model railroad museum in Richland preps for holiday show as construction on addition continues

Construction of an addition to the Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum in Richland won’t derail its holiday train show.

The 37th annual show is slated to run from Nov. 8 to Jan. 11 at the museum on Route 910 at Lakeside Drive, museum President Ray Mueser said.

Work will still be underway on the roughly $600,000 project that the museum broke ground on in August — a two-story, 40-by-50-foot addition that will add 4,000 square feet to the 8,000-square-foot building that the museum has called home for nearly 40 years.

The cost is being paid with a combination of donations from the nonprofit museum’s members, fundraising, grants and financing, Mueser said.

In planning since 2018, the project was dealt a double blow when it was set back by the covid pandemic in 2020 — the only year the holiday show was not held — and after which the cost almost doubled, he said.

“Everybody’s happy because it’s been so long in coming,” Mueser said. “We didn’t think it was ever going to come around.”

The museum features a large and detailed display of trains and towns between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Md., as they appeared in 1953 that winds through and fills its upper floor, while the lower level includes train displays that children can play with and control.

The year 1953 was chosen for the display’s time period because that was when steam trains were being phased out and diesels were coming in, so either can be run on it, Mueser said.

The buildings are built from scratch because “there’s no kits out there that’s what we want,” he said. But despite the year it’s set in, the entire thing is controlled by computer.

The addition will give the museum more space for the display and allow it to change its layout, Mueser said. It is expected to be ready for the following holiday show in 2026-27.

A little over 10,000 people visited for last year’s show, which is the only time of the year the museum is open to the public.

Members work on the display layout, enhancing and adding to its scenery, the rest of the year, Mueser said.

Because of rising costs, Mueser said admission for this year’s show has increased from $10 to $12 for adults and from $5 to $6 for children younger than 12.

Mueser, 76, a retired Pittsburgh bus driver from Valencia, has been president of the museum since 1998. It has nearly 100 members.

He gained an interest in model trains from his father, who set up trains around their tree at Christmas.

“I just like trains,” he said. “I don’t know what I like about them, I just like them.”

Founded as the Pittsburgh HO Railroad Club in 1938, it originally was based at the 11th Avenue Freight House office building in Pittsburgh until it was forced out to make way for the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The museum’s members moved it to its own home in Richland in 1986 after then being forced out of locations in East Liberty and the North Side, said Mueser, who first joined after the museum opened in Richland.

For the holiday show, the museum will primarily be open weekends Nov. 8 to Jan. 11 — from 6 to 9 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Hours differ the Fridays after Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. They will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Nov. 28 and Dec. 26 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 27-31.

The museum is always accepting applications for new members 18 and older who have a love of trains and are dedicated to preserving history.

Information about joining is available on its website at membership.wpmrm.org.