Ohio Valley Lines in Ambridge cancels open house, holiday train display this year

Model trains of Ohio Valley Lines in Ambridge will not pull out of their station this year due to health concerns and covid-19 safety restrictions.

The club of locomotive enthusiasts have hosted an open house and holiday display for nearly 40 years. It’s been held the last two decades at 1225 Merchant St.

Doors are usually open Saturdays and Sundays from Thanksgiving to New Year’s with about 100 visitors each day.

“It gets pretty crowded in there,” said club secretary Mike DeSensi. “Our alleyways don’t permit one-way traffic flow, and people are elbow-to-elbow when we’re really busy.”

Those conditions are less than ideal during a pandemic when the world has been asked to socially distance at least 6 feet and wear a mask in most places.

Member Tom James said leadership decided sometime in September to not have an open house this year.

He called the decision disappointing, but understands why given the circumstances.

“There’s not a lot of room to walk around the layout,” James said. “People do tend to get fixated on a certain item, or want to see a train come by that went by earlier. They get stacked up pretty good.”

The club has two permanent displays, a main HO-scale railroad and a N-scale model railway that members work on all year long.

Most of the displays are interactive with some sections devoted to the steel industry, including a large mill and coke oven, and logging and coal mining towns. There are Downtown Pittsburgh scenes and special effects that mimic storms and other lights and sounds.

“That’s our main attraction, and trains are synonymous with Christmas,” James said. “You’d like to show it off. You’re proud of your product, and it’s nice when they come in and oooh and awe and say, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’”

James said some members had cleaned various train cars and hundreds upon hundreds of feet of track prior to the decision to cancel the display this year.

Membership rejected a proposal to have open house registration with groups coming in during specific times.

“We were not interested in having some sort of reduced attendance cap or limiting visitors to a specified timeframe,” DeSensi said. “We would love to be open. We really look forward do it.”

The open house and holiday weekends usually generate about $5,000 to $6,000 for the club.

DeSensi said Ohio Valley Lines is in good financial shape, owns the building the displays are in and can afford to be closed this year.

James said he would support visitor reservations, but there would be problems with having people wait outside in inclement weather as well as rushing patrons out for the next crowd.

“It’s probably too much and we can’t police it all,” he said.

The club has more than 40 active members.

More information is available by calling 724-266-4787 or go to ohiovalleylines.org.