San Diego Model Railroad Museum, Model train museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, USA.

The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is a model train museum in Balboa Park featuring four permanent displays that showcase miniature versions of California's railroad networks and regional landscapes. Each exhibit contains detailed scale models of historical train routes, complete with intricate trackwork and tiny buildings set into scenic dioramas.

Model railroading in Balboa Park dates to the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition, when pioneer Minton Cronkhite built a 40-by-70-foot exhibit for the fair. The museum itself opened in 1982 on the lower level of Casa de Balboa, with a mission to preserve California railroad heritage through miniature representations. Its 27,000 square feet of exhibits were built and are maintained by four local railroad clubs.

Four local railroad clubs build and maintain the layouts as nonprofit organizations: the San Diego Model Railroad Club, La Mesa Model Railroad Club, San Diego Society of N-Scale and San Diego 3-Railers. In the Toy Train Gallery, members run trains with Lionel LEGACY and MTH DCS remote systems, and children can press a button to start a train on an interactive layout.

Visitors can move at their own pace through the indoor exhibits, which operate continuously during open hours. The museum is housed indoors, so you can explore the displays in any weather and take as long as you like to study the details up close.

The model train layouts incorporate exact geographical details and architectural features that required thousands of volunteer hours to construct and maintain over the years. Some displays took many years to complete, revealing intricate details that become apparent only when you look closely at the miniature landscapes.