All aboard! — Model trains on display at National Historic Trails Center

CASPER — For more than 10 years, the Central Wyoming Model Railroad Association has graced the National Historic Trails Center in Casper during the month of December to draw in more people and introduce the world of trains to people.

Harry Buhler, treasurer of the association, said there are five different sized trains at the Trails Center this year, each one is about half the size of the next.

“The model train association, they’ve been affiliated with us for probably 12 to 15 years, and they’ve been good friends with the National Historic Trails Center over all these years,” visitor information specialist Jason Vlcan said. “And the reason why we brought them up at the beginning was to get the community involved. School kids were out of school at a certain time during the Christmas holiday season, so that would be a fun thing for the families and the kids to come up and play with some trains for a little bit.”

The trains will be on display Dec. 19-20 and Dec. 26-27 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Attendees won’t just get to look at the displays, but they actually get a chance to operate and maneuver a couple of the trains as well, Buhler said.

The N-scale train, which is the smallest scale train on display at the Trails Center, will be set up for visitors to fully operate.

The G-scale train, or sometimes called the garden railroad, is the largest scale train at the center. Members of the model railroad association will operate it, but visitors will have to help the operator figure out how to operate the switching layout to move cars from one end to the other.

While many may not know the names of the trains or have a lot of experience with model trains, Buhler said it is actually a lot like at-home Christmas tree trains or other smaller train sets.

“It’s basically the same, only it’s just a little more complicated, it’s a little bigger,” Buhler said.

The craft requires a lot of time, Buhler noted.

The association members have a club house on North Center Street where they have multiple very large and detailed train setups.

“Most people start out with the train around the Christmas tree,” Buhler said. “And then if they get interested in that, then they’ll go to a four by eight piece of plywood and make the layout on that. Then gradually they’ll say, ‘Oh, well, I’m tired of just having a loop around,’ [so they’ll] put some turnouts in... and gradually you build up like that. A lot of people see a layout like we have done at the club, or what we’re going to display up here, and they go, ‘Oh, I can’t do that.’ Well, down at the club, it took us 15 years to do what we did, and it just takes time.”

Judy Ridolfino joined the association about four years ago after seeing the displays at the National Historic Trails Center. Now, she takes the lead on landscaping the model train layouts.

“So my sidekick, Frank, and I had come here four or five years ago, when they were set up and he won a little train car,” Ridolfino said. “And so that kind of got us started. And then we got sucked in. Then I started doing the landscaping and making things look prettier and add some color.”

For this year’s display, Ridolfino created a Christmas village to come along the inside of the railways.

On the left, it looks like a more simple forest or hillscape. But to the right, the landscaping starts to transition into a more magical place until it leads to the snow-covered village.

“The Christmas one is my rules, so why can’t there be a red tree, you know, the grass can be white and sparkly,” Ridolfino said. “It snowed and I made a little village and the stores. And I just kind of —  I don’t make a big plan, but I knew I wanted a Santa village. So I kind of make it up as I go along.”

It is not as simple as just throwing it together as she went along. Ridolfino said she was constantly examining the world around her for things she could use in the display to match the scale of it.

She made her own trees and put together rock paths with really small gravel. People are only the size of the length of your fingernail, Ridolfino said.

This story was published on Dec. 16, 2025.