The Lionel train exhibit, an annual tradition at the Henry Sheldon Museum, recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its holiday train display. Residents of Middlebury and surrounding towns along with students, faculty and staff from the college visited the exhibit, which featured a three-level two-track train display.
The exhibit ran for roughly two months from Nov. 24 through Jan. 13.
“It is our most popular attraction annually. Thousands of people come to see them over the course of the exhibit run,” Allison LaCroix Hayes, collections manager at the Sheldon Museum, told The Campus.
The three levels of trains in the exhibit were set against a backdrop of the Green Mountains that featured an operating ski lift, miniature skiers, snowboarders, rock climbers, bicyclists and more. Local artist and Middlebury graduate Gayl Braisted painted the picturesque background.
The exhibit also included histories of the Middlebury, Rutland, Vt. and Burlington, Vt. railroads and their connections to the Henry Sheldon Museum. The Amtrak train stop in Middlebury opened in the fall of 2022 and is a part of the larger Ethan Allen Express that runs from Burlington through New York City with stops in Rutland and Albany, N.Y.
This year, the museum added a few new features to the train display, including a drawbridge on the tracks and a hands-on train table for kids. These additions to this year’s exhibit made the total display bigger than ever, which forced the museum staff to move it to a larger room in the museum.
The tracks included both Lionel O gauge trains and HO trains, two of the most common types of model trains.
“I personally loved seeing the trains during our annual holiday open house when we get a lot of families and children in. Kids are just in awe of it (and a lot of times their parents are too) so it's great to see that no matter how many years it's been, the excitement never dies down,” Aine Powers ’24 wrote in an email to The Campus.
Powers, who is also an intern at the Sheldon museum, credited the hard work of the volunteers and engineers who make the exhibit happen each year.
“These guys know more about model trains than anything you can imagine and their passion for it definitely makes the experience that much more worthwhile,” Powers wrote.
Although the exhibit is gone for the year, the museum still offers archival research opportunities, and the college has taught courses centered around the museum’s collections. A class titled Vermont Collaborations Public Humanities Lab offered this past fall, cross-listed in the American Studies and History of Art and Architecture Departments, examined the museum’s archives, institutional history and the history of the Middlebury area.
As of Jan. 13, the Sheldon Museum is currently on its winter break and will re-open in the spring. In the meantime, the museum’s website features a virtual exhibit on the history of what used to be known as the Campus Theater and is now the Middlebury Marquis.
