The Martin & Frances Lehnis Railroad Museum will be celebrating a “Choo Choo Christmas” again this December.  There will be lots of Christmas decorations, music, and special model train layouts.

Friday, December 3rd and Saturday December 4th, the museum will open from 4 pm to 8 pm in conjunction with the Christmas Under the Stars Festival.  Santa will be seeing children in the Kress depot, and families can get their Christmas photos with Santa for just $3 each.  The big train will be outside running families between the museum and HPU campus, the two sites of the Christmas Under the Stars Festival.  We’ll have Choo Choo Tim the Singing Engineer, picking his Q-Chord, storytelling and whistle blowing, as well as giving rides on his little choo choo train.

Have yourself a very “Choo Choo Christmas” at the Lehnis Railroad Museum on the first three Saturdays of December from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each week.  Santa Claus will be in the Kress Depot to talk with children, and photo opportunities will be available for that special gift for family and friends.  Model railroad club members will be running all of the model layouts and toy trains each Saturday.  In addition the club is holding a drawing for a Lionel train set worth $160.  Chances are $2 each or 3 for $5 and the drawing will be held on December 18th, just in time for a Christmas present!  Last year a very happy 8-year-old boy took it home.

December 3rd is the Grand Opening of the new exhibit “Buster World – For the Kid in All of Us”.  From 4:00 pm December 3rd through the whole holiday season, a Choo Choo Christmas will include the new American Flyer Model Train exhibit “Buster World – For the Kid in All of Us”.  It is the most kid friendly interactive model train in Texas!  It has five sections:  Circus World, Oil Field, Frontier Land, Future Land, and Fantasy Land.  Kids can push buttons that will make toys move, play music and sounds, and burn log cabins to the ground!  Not only that, but kids of all ages can crawl under the table and come up in two places in domes, right in the middle of the trains!  And a camera has been placed in the “Miss Mary” locomotive and the flat screen TV shows what the “engineer” on the little locomotive can see.  There’s nothing like it!

Admission for the museum December 3 and 4 evenings and each Saturday in December before Christmas will be $2 per person age 5 and up.  Weekdays (Tuesday through Friday) will be $3 for adults, $2.50 for seniors & $2 for children 5 – 12.  Children under 5 are always free.  Hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm, and any day you visit in December will be a Choo Choo Christmas!  Make it a part of your Christmas traditions every year!

Pictured Above:   Santa in the Kress Depot .  Below is a sneak peak at the American Flyer Buster World – For the Kid in All of Us”.  Photos contributed.