Amazing Model Train Set Donated to Frisco Museum

The Museum of the American Railroad in Frisco is raising money to move an amazing model train set for public display.

Dallas widow Jane Sanders said her husband Steve spent many years and around $1 million collecting pieces of the display.

"It’s sort of a story of our life and his life as a boy," she said. "He would go to camp in Colorado. His mother would take him to Union Station in Dallas. He would take the train to Colorado. And he loved trains ever since then."

So the display depicts Downtown Dallas in the 1950's, Colorado and many points in between where the family lived or visited.

It was professionally assembled in the 2,000 square foot attic of their new Dallas home just a year before Steve Sanders’ death in 2013.

“He wanted a lot of people to be able to see these trains, because it is an amazing display. It’s got some history to it. And for me personally, I want people to know about him,” Jane Sanders said.

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Ken Kalthoff

She decided the display should be open to the public and the Frisco based railroad museum is making arrangements.

The museum has only an outdoor location for now to display full size trains. The City of Frisco has offered indoor space for the model trains nearby in the city-owned Discovery Center.

“We had been offered a number of model railroads over the years, but this one just blew us away," said Museum official Bob LaPrelle. "The size and the scale of this was beyond anything we had ever seen. We realized early on, this was going to be a perfect fit for us.”

Mrs. Sanders agrees.

"It’s going to be great, because a lot of people can see them and it will work out good for everybody," she said.

But, the museum must raise $200,000 to disassemble the display, move it and reassemble it in Frisco. 

The museum hopes to have it available to the public in Frisco by Christmas.

MORE: Museum of the American Railroad

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