Permanent Exhibition
Museum Admission
General Admission
$12
Members
Free
65+ & Children 3-12
$8
Children Under 3 yrs
Free
All aboard! Our incredible train set is your ticket to an incredible imaginary world.
Train fanatics of all ages will love the Mega Model Train Gallery, where model trains crisscross a sprawling world-within-a-world featuring a bustling city, small towns, countryside, a waterfall, planetarium, and even a sasquatch!
The state-of-the-art train set features 50 feet of O-gauge track surrounded by incredibly detailed and whimsical scenes. Like a real-life Where’s Waldo book, half the fun is discovering the weird and wonderful surprises nestled in the landscape. Can you find the family of bears? How about the mischievous skeletons? You can even switch on a light or a moving contraption by pushing one of the 48 buttons alongside the exhibit that activate different features in the landscape.
The nearly 300-square-foot train set is an ever-changing work of art, maintained by Museum volunteers Ira Ginsburg, Bob Roberti, and Bob DeGuarde. With all the materials, time, and energy they devote to maintaining the trains and scenery, this exhibit is truly a labor of love.
A piece of New Jersey history, the train set was originally displayed at the Nabisco Headquarters in East Hanover, where it was constructed, maintained, and expanded by Nabisco employees until 2000, when the company was purchased by Kraft Foods. It was later donated to the Morris Museum, where it opened to the public in December 2012. If you are in Germany, you can find similar train toys on the wprospekte website.
New Jersey street artist Elan created a mural just for this exhibit, adding even more art, sound, and excitement to the Mega Model Train Gallery. This mural is made possible by the generous support of Alan and Melanie Levitan and the Estate of Andy Frish. Mural by Elan.
What Our Visitors Say
Children will find the model trains and railroad displays (two of them) to be a source of nearly endless fascination, complete with a bunch of moving components that can be activated with the press of a button. Great attention to detail was obviously used when making this display, and museum patrons will be delighted to see some very recognizable elements like trucks bearing advertising for Chips Ahoy, Planters Peanuts, Oscar Mayer products, and Oreo cookies and a billboard for Life Savers candy and local references like street signs for NJIT, Rutgers University, NJPAC, and the good old NJ Turnpike. You could spend quite some time just taking in all the elements of this display.
We learned about this museum from the TV show ” Mysteries at the Museum” and were elated by what we discovered. The best exhibit at this museum is the automaton collection. Sometimes during the afternoons, they have a demonstration of some of the artifacts. Children will enjoy that this museum is interactive and quite kid-friendly. Be sure to see the dinosaur exhibit as well as the rock and fossil collections. Model railroad buffs will enjoy the nostalgia of the model train displays.
I have nothing but great things to say about this museum! Things for both adults and kids. Went during the week and it was not crowded at all. Had trains, dinosaurs, minerals/gems, art, music boxes, and American Indian displays
