Allegheny West Christmas Tour Train Museum
On display only two days out of year during the Christmas season, the Allegheny West Christmas Tour Train Museum is a hidden gem in Western PA for those looking for something a little different to do during the holidays. Located about a mile from Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, the Train museum is part of the Allegheny West Victorian Christmas House Tour. Visitors can choose to take part in the house tour or just head straight to the final house (where the collection located) to see the trains. The tickets for the train museum were only $12. Since the display is now closed for the season, I took a few photos to let you see how overwhelming the collection is. ( I even took a few of the exterior of the houses on the house tour for reference on how beautiful they are)
The collection is owned by a man named John DeSantis. The docents at the museum didn’t offer much background on the gentleman other to let everyone know he was a man of means and loved toy trains. The collections contains over 8,000 different pieces and were manufactured between 1860 and 1939 by companies like Lionel, American Flyer, Ives and Dorfan. All the pieces in the collection are standard gauge. While nobody at the museum can be sure, they believe that this could be the largest private collection of standard gauge toy trains in the world. The collection includes one of every train the manufacturers of the day produced, but also every variation of those same trains.
The trains are located on the upper floors of the final Victorian house on the tour. The house is an entirely different story but needless to say, it’s very impressive. I’ll leave you a few links to find out more about the event.
Merry Christmas!!
Old Allegheny Victorian Christmas House Tour