Colorado Toy Train Foundation

Educational symposia are conducted throughout the year. Admission is free to each symposium. Speakers volunteer their time and any objects used in their demonstrations. Some symposia are educational focusing on collecting toy trains, while others are how to programs focusing on skills used in operating or building toy train layouts. Three educational programs were presented in 2024. They were: Repair and maintenance of post war (manufactured between 1945 and 1969) steam locomotives; 3-D printing of HO gauge building and detailed accessories for a train layout; how the ZW 275-watt transformer works and how to rebuild them.

In addition to the HO operating layout, a Brio layout and the O gauge modular layout the museum has over 100 linear feet of static displays. These displays are changed periodically and are used to demonstrate all gauges from G, standard, O, S, HO, N, and Z. These are displays showing: historical development of steam engines; a wide varity of transformers from 20 watts to 275 watts; the variations of boxes used by Lionel during the postwar period; the changes in O gauge track and in trucks and couplers used on model trains. The displays educate novice as well as the long-time collector of toy and model trains.