roads and rails museum

I brought two of my grandsons (3 & 1) to experience this wonderful museum of model trains and such. One room is filled with thousands of dollars worth of Legos, from a private collection. Just push a button and watch the trains come to life. The large model train display is intricately designed and well maintained. Definitely a "stop 'n see" for any train enthusiast.

My 2 year old loves 'choo choos' so we she had a wonderful time. There isn't much to do...it's only observing. There are stools everywhere so the little ones can climb up to see. There are buttons on the side that make people move, or lights come on, ors car drive around. There is a back room filled with a lego display as well. A lego train and a few other features move. This one is lower to the ground so better viewing for the little guys. Also more colorful.All and all a cute little place definitely worth going if your kid(s) like trains.

The general overview is a small warehouse sized room that has a HUGE train table in the center. You walk around it and can push buttons to turn trains on, make people move, turn on a roller coaster, etc. My two 3 YO boys couldn't contain their glee. It was so entertaining to look at-the detail, he sheer num ER of trains, buildings, landscapes, etc. A must see attraction. My only wish is the owners make enough money to one day expand!!

I give this location 5 stars, realizing that this is a small-town museum where you can spent 1 - 2 hours. The price was right and the detail, care, and imagination to set up that HUGE mutli-room model trail city is out of this world. My 6 year old boy loved it, and the more time I spent looking - the more details popped out. Definitely recommended!! :)

We have taken our 7-year-old here 3 times. He has loved it every time! Last week we took him, his 4-year-old sister, his parents, his uncle, & his great grandfather. All 4 generations loved it! Our kids & grandkids love the Lego room too. The 1st time there our grandson begged us not to leave yet!

A must stop. Nothing fancy but the details of the train and settings will spark memories in all. The staff was super nice and although I'm not a train buff the time these folks spent in setting this up is notable. Well worth the time to take your time and walk with your little ones. If they can't understand the train them wait til they can. Some interaction but it's the setting that makes it all very cool

Visited this lovely little museum with my 5 and 3 year old boys. The main room is a huge, intricate O-gauge model train display, featuring dozen of buttons for kids to control motions of various trains, buildings and figures. Adults will enjoy the voluminous historical and pop culture references throughout. The back room is filled with a large LEGO display featuring hundreds of different figures. We enjoyed trying to locate various LEGO figures that were shown on an adjacent poster. The museum also has a small Thomas the Tank Engine display and a small room for kids' parties. At $8 for adults and $5 for kids this offered good value.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this museum and must say I was pleasantly surprised. I visited with four children under the age of 11 on a Friday in June. There is a good sized parking lot, so you don't have to feed a meter. The cost is $8 for adults and $5 for children ages 3-11. We were amazed by the size of the exhibit. I expected to see model railroad displays, but what we got was a miniature world with trains running throughout. A sign on the wall tells visitors that there are 27 engines, 39 freight cars, 29 passenger cars, 12 mobile trucks and cars, 16 trolleys and 6 buses. There are 355 buildings, 179 animals, 438 stationary vehicles, and 1,140 miniature people. In addition to the moving trains there are little buttons that can be pushed to make the people do things, lights turn on, volcano explode, animals appear, etc. It was really quite amazing. In a separate room there is a massive Lego display. It had a train and a city, a pirate scene, a medieval scene, a church and spaceships. The children are just at the age where they are loving Lego, so that was very fun to see. We probably spent between two and three hours there, but you could easily do more or less. One thing I thought was super nice is that they have little stools for children to stand on so you don't have to hold them up. The staff was nice and just left us alone to explore. I can't rank them a 5 because it could have been cleaner. The bathrooms were clean, but the rest of the museum could use a good dusting. It was also a bit hard to navigate with a stroller.

It was a wonderful visit to see all the displays as well as the scavenger hunt questions for the older kids and parents. Finding Waldo was tough, but we got him. We all loved it.

This is about the best miniature railroad display you'll find anywhere. It's worth seeing at least once. One of my favorite Frederick attractions. Kids and adults with both appreciate it.

We took our almost 3-year-old grandson to this museum as he has begun to be interested in Thomas the Train. We were the first ones there on a Thursday morning and it was perfect. Right in the entrance area is a small Thomas train set up. It was perfect. When we walked through the curtained doorway into the main room I was astonished as to how large the place is. We went to the right and began our journey around the room. You should note that there are stools that can be carried with you so the little ones have an easier time of seeing. We didn't see the stools until we were way on the other side and almost done so we had to carry him a lot of the time - so look first for the stools. He was a little young to really get a handle on everything but he was certainly mesmerized by the many many trains. He liked pushing the buttons but about half of them do very intricate or small things - like a firefighter climbing up a ladder (or something similar to that). So, he didn't always really see what was happening but I did and I loved it. After going all around the huge display of just hundreds and hundreds of things to see, we went to the Lego room. On the way to the Lego room was another Thomas train display which was at his viewing level. He stayed there quite a while watching for the train to come out of the tunnel. I couldn't believe the Lego room. He didn't really care about it that much but any older child who is into Legos would love it. I thought it was amazing - again hundreds and hundreds of Lego figures, buildings, etc. and of course a Lego train. I can't wait until he is a little older to take him back. He is just a little too young to be able to really explain to him what to look at but he definitely had a great time seeing what a 2 1/2 year old can observe.I feel that the museum is easy to find and there is a parking area behind the building.

The place is pretty nice inside. You can tell they put a lot of work in this. This would be 5 stars, but the location is hard to get to, and the parking is awful.

This is a fabulous model train layout with great scenes. Best I have seen ever. Lost of functioning aspects to the scenes, even an airport. Some model sales in the store. Highly recommend if you are visiting Frederick.

Our 2 year old is obsessed with trains. we've been to many places, Baltimore and Ohio museum and Strasburg, PA, but we found this place to be the largest and most intricate. a lot of buttons for him to push and axiom create alot of interest. highly recommended

Took my 3 year old niece here and she loved it. What is nice is they have the trains running but also lots of buttons to push that cause different things to move like cars or roller coasters. We went during the week so it wasn't crowded at all and she had the whole place to herself to hit all the buttons and watch all the trains. The Lego trains were also a nice touch! We walked around for about 45 minutes, went to get lunch and then came back since your ticket is good all day. I hear they get busy on the weekends so if possible I would recommend going during the week. My niece wouldn't have had as much fun if there were other kids running around pushing the buttons too. They have free parking behind the building. I also liked the attention to detail and the fun things the adults can pick out that is over the heads of the kids. They have a nice store with books, trains and shirts for sale.