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Strasburg is a little Amish village not far from Lancaster. I'm not sure how they ended up so train-themed, but they sure did. One can even take a steam-train excursion from there if they wanted to (we didn't have time, or it would have been a lot of fun, and we did see it steam by a few times).
What we did see were three attractions, each very unique in their own way: First was the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, which has a large collection of old rail stock, mostly engines but also boxcars, cabooses, and other rolling stock, from years gone by. The vast majority of it is very nicely restored (they have an on-site restoration garage which wasn't open to the public). It's well worth your time if you're even remotely interested in railroading.
Next up was the National Toy Train Museum. This museum features case upon case of model railroad engines and cars. The vast majority of their collection is O-gauge, but they did feature some HO gauge, and had a nod to some of the other gauges as well. They had a number of operating layouts, many with pushbuttons which kids could use to operate a train or some scenery effect. Next door is the Red Caboose Motel, where one can stay inside an actual old boxcar remodeled on the inside. We didn't stay there, but did do lunch inside one of their two dining cars.
Finally, we visited the Choo Choo Barn. This was a single, but huge, O-gauge layout. But just calling it a "layout" misses the whole point-- almost everything in the entire layout was animated. Cars moved down the highway. Amish carpenters swung tiny hammers on the roof of a barn. Circus performers did their thing, while the animals paced in their cages. On and on it went. You were invited to walk around the layout more than once, which we did. The kids loved it, and us adult kids did too. Don't miss this, even if you don't think you're a train fain.
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