Dateline>City of Angels

Like so many boys growing up, I loved model trains. While my dad’s generation fixated on the famous Lionel O scales, my brothers and I built our miniature tunnels, trestles and crossing gates around the Tyco HO train sets of the 1960s and ’70s.

Those hobby adventure days may be long gone, but it’s good to know that whenever I wax nostalgic for my childhood toys, there are bigger and better versions still close at hand.

I’m speaking, of course, of Griffith Park’s Travel Town, established in December 1952 to showcase the real, full-sized train sets that grown-ups eventually grew tired of and discarded. First envisioned as a sort of “railroad petting zoo” where kids could freely roam, climb and explore the locomotives, Travel Town took a more serious track in the 1980s, adopting a Master Plan emphasizing growth, restoration and preservation. Since then, the museum has been busy fine-tuning its train and railroad memorabilia collections and expanding its educational programs for young and old alike.

According to the museum’s website, the present muster of historical engines and cars dates as far back as 1864 and includes 16 locomotives, four interurbans, nine freight cars and cabooses, and nine passenger cars. Located at 5200 Zoo Drive, the museum is open M-F., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and weekends, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. All aboard!