Model Restraint

A huge model train display open only twice a year

modelrestraint_0Photo: Mark O’Neill

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t’s not every day you get to see one of the biggest model train displays in New England. In fact, you can see it only two times a year (Once in the spring, and once before Christmas; check here for exact dates) when the Bay State Model Railroad Museum opens its door for one of its rare open houses. The museum is tough to find if you don’t know where to look, but once you spot the door and climb the stairs you’ll discover four different wall-to-wall displays that have taken 30 years to pull together, with everything from trains and trucks to city and country scenes, bridges and roadways along seven scale miles of track, right down to the people running it all—at 1:87 (and smaller) scale. Kids get in free. Burns

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A model railroad club at MIT developed model railroad-sized miniature track-switching in the 1950s using telephone relays. MIT Professor Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, is a model railroad enthusiast.

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