This Baltimore holiday model train show isn’t your typical Christmas train garden.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article included information about the date and time of the train show, which have been removed. The event is not open to the public, and can only be attended by Roland Park Place residents and train modelers’ families.

When many think of train gardens, people tend to envision fire houses and miniature scenes of cozy Victorian winter wonderlands, replete with Santa Claus and Christmas trees and children on sleighs.

The Holiday Model Train Show held at Roland Park Place this weekend may contain elements of that, but differs from the typical holiday train garden in multiple ways.

“Although there will be some people [who] like to add little Christmassy touches here and there — like one you’re likely to see in one of the railroad cars, a gondola carrying a Christmas tree with gift wrapped packages in it — for the most part, it’s people that are trying, to the extent that their modeling skills allow, to accurately model real trains and real scenery, real buildings, things like that,” said Arthur Boyd, who put the train show together at the senior living community.

This is Boyd’s second year organizing the Holiday Model Train Show at Roland Park Place. He described last year as an experiment that turned out so well, residents kept passing him in the hall mentioning it and insisting he do it again this year. Originally from the Midwest (Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) Boyd has been living at the retirement community since 2021, and is a Baltimore resident of “only 37 years,” he laughed.

Boyd was around five years old when he got his first train set as a Christmas present.

“Oftentimes, people give it up as they move into adulthood and leave it in their parents’ home. Then about the time they retire they wish they still had them, and they start new,” Boyd said. “So we have people that come back to the hobby late in life after their children are grown, off on their own, [and] they have the time and attention to be able to do something, and they can retrieve something that was an enjoyable part of their life when they were younger.”

He, however, is not one of those people. Boyd maintained his train modeling hobby throughout adulthood, noting it’s a minority of people who might stay with one hobby for their whole life.

“With model railroading it’s possible because it’s so creative and there’s so many different aspects to that. From carpentry to electronics to running the trains themselves and so on. There are many things that could keep a person interested at whatever stage of life they’re in,” Boyd said.

Doing these model train shows now gives him an outlet that his apartment-living lifestyle doesn’t really allow the space for now.

The Holiday Model Train Show at Roland Park Place also differs from most other shows in its collaborative nature and wide geographic reach. It pulls in model train enthusiasts from Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; and Harford County.

In all, this year 15 modelers are contributing to the train show having created one or more train modules based on a one-foot by one-foot square, with standard connection points that make them easy to put together with modules the other train modelers bring. No one knows what the entire set up will look like until the morning of the train show, and everyone shows up with their modules and the building begins, which Boyd describes as lots of fun.

“We have a number of tables set up that Roland Park Place arranges for … and starting Saturday morning about 8 a.m., the people who have built these from the Baltimore area, and Washington D.C. area, and Harford County area will drive up in their cars and SUVs and start unloading and we’ll start putting them out on these tables and then start thinking, ‘Well, let’s see, this one would look really good next to this other one,’” Boyd said. “So, they would put those two together. And then somebody else comes in with another one, and we would think, ‘Well, this would make a nice corner. Let’s start a corner here, and have the tables go around the corner.’ So, we never know what this is going to look like until it’s all put together.”

The size of the trains is not what one pictures the typical Lionel train to be, either. In fact, none of these train are Lionel trains, because Lionel doesn’t manufacture model trains this small. Boyd’s set up uses N scale trains, which are about one quarter of the size people think of Lionel trains as being. “An engine locomotive could sit in the palm of your hand,” Boyd said.

The modules from the 15 different train modelers don’t necessarily match in style, period, geographical depiction, or level of expertise, either.

“One of the things that can be fun about this [is] that you can have any time period that appeals to you,” Boyd said. “And so, most of the people are modeling what’s current in the recent decades, things that they’ve seen in real life, during their lifetime. But other people will have an interest in an old western town or New England village. So, there can be different themes and different eras. It’s up to the individual modeler what appeals to them, too, that they would like to put together something that reminds them of their childhood, often, or things that have impressed them when they’ve been out in the world today.”

Among the 15 modelers, there’s a father/daughter team, a grandmother and her grandson, along with individual modelers joining the build. Some of the modules will be quite simple with just a frame and tracks, and others will be more complex that the more experienced modelers have been working on for years, complete with scenery and great attention to tiny detail. Boyd sees this as one of the benefits, as visitors coming to the show can see all the stages of learning that take place, making it more accessible to people who might be interested in taking up the hobby.

“[T]hey’ll look at some of the modules which are just spectacular in there. They’re scenic. You could imagine that being a real place, and others that are quite simply done. And people can look at that and say, ‘Oh, I can do that,’” Boyd said. “And it’s only one foot by one foot. ‘Gee, what could I do? In one foot by one foot?’ So, it’s impressive, but also accessible, that you could imagine yourself doing it. And maybe aspiring to have it look eventually like some of the best ones out there. But there will be a range of simpler and more sophisticated things.”

Roland Park Place will provide light refreshments for attendees. There will be chairs all around the train display, so if parents or grandparents get tired, they can sit down while the children walk around and see the approximately 80 linear feet of train layout.

The reward is the pleasure we see in people’s eyes as they look at the display,” Boyd said. “One of the things that we found particularly enjoyable was seeing the grandparents and their grandchildren, taking them around to see the trains and walking around and pointing out things to each other that they see.”