All aboard, for Christmas train displays
Trains are synonymous with Christmas for obscure reasons. After all, there are no steam engines surrounding the birth of Christ or the ancient Yule revels, and Saint Nicholas prefers magical livestock to technology. Yet the train has endured as a symbol of Christmas, and Houston celebrates that connection in a variety of delightful ways this year.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is the latest addition to the city’s Christmas train offerings. The museum has recently opened the monumental miniature exhibit “Trains Over Texas.” The exhibit, built to “O” scale, is a massive representation of some of the most famous train routes that have dotted the Texas landscape.
Engines weave throughout iconic parts of the state, including Enchanted Rock, Pedernales Falls, Balcones Escarpment and Big Bend National Park. The entrance to the rest of the museum is even topped with a replica of the Pecos High Bridge, which was at one time the highest train bridge in North America.
Children are encouraged to duck down under the tables and crawl into the center so that the trains run all around them and above the tiny natural bridge caverns that are hidden from adult-size people. Reaching to the ceiling are Christmas trees covered with twinkling lights, making the whole collection an educational and exquisite expansion on the concept of the Christmas train you might see around the base of your favorite holiday shrubs each year.
As long as you’re in the area, two other model trains deserve your attention. The first is in the Abercrombie Building of St. Luke’s Hospital. Open year-round, it’s always spruced up to celebrate Christmas with a variety of controllable attractions, like a carnival and a circus. Many a sick child at the connected Texas Children’s Hospital has found joy being taken down to the train when they are ill over the holidays.
Also think about popping into Zoo Lights at the Houston Zoo. In addition to the awesome mechanical light displays and the chance to see some of the animals at night, Zoo Lights has a small train village. It’s not as ambitious in scope as “Trains Over Texas,” but what it lacks in scale it more than makes up for in wonder. The trains move through villages that look like they’re right off the pages of storybooks. Under the night sky, the fairy lights give the landscapes a dreamy glow that heightens the sense that you’re peeking in on something enchanted.
However, if you want to actually ride a train through a winter wonderland (or as close as Houston is likely to produce), then you need to head down to Victory Camp in Alvin. Their Christmas train is a short ride through displays of thousands of lighted displays. There are candy lands and Nativity scenes and trees ablaze with lights as far as you can see. It makes for a great family outing in the evening. There are similar rides such as the Old Time Christmas Tree farm train up on Spring Cypress, but no one puts as much work into having a real life Polar Express the way Victory Camp does.
All aboard who’s coming aboard!