Railroad Museum Celebrates Toy Train Month

California State Parks and the California State Railroad Museum & Foundation are proud to recognize August 2018 as Toy Train Month, an annual celebration that spotlights the popular Thomas W. Sefton Gallery and “Small Wonders: The Magic of Toy Trains” exhibit. Coinciding with Toy Train Month, the Railroad Museum will debut a newly-acquired collection of pre-war toy trains and accessories manufactured by the German company Märklin that will be available for public viewing!

This latest display of toy trains was originally procured by an American soldier during WWII directly from the Märklin factory in Göppingen, Germany, and was sent as a gift to his newborn son in Arkansas. As payment for the collection, the determined soldier bartered a large Hershey’s chocolate bar for the toy steam locomotive – black in color with red pinstripes and red spoke wheels – and a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes for the remainder of the collection. The California State Railroad Museum acquired the prized collection earlier this year as the result of a donation from one the Museum’s dedicated docents.