TRAIN TICKET TO LEARNING

Great Lakes Science Center’s ‘All Aboard!’ uses our enduring interest in locomotives and railroads to educate

Certainties in life: Death, taxes and that young children — especially little boys — always will love trains. That, along with Northeast Ohio having a rich history with railroading, explains why the Great Lakes Science Center created “All Aboard! The Science of Trains,” an exhibit steaming into next year at the downtown Cleveland attraction.

“Kids are so fascinated by trains,” says GLSC communications director Joe Yachanin during a recent visit to “All Aboard!” “It’s a really good avenue for talking about the science behind trains. The exhibit looks at things like friction and the physics of moving all of those tons of crates.”

“All Aboard!” touches on a range of topics, with, Yachanin says, a focus on physics and engineering. According to press materials, among subjects visitors can explore:

• How a steel wheel rolling on a steel track reduces friction

• How a train can be a mile or two long

• How steam- and dieselpowered locomotives differ

• How the linked train cars move in relation to each other.

“(One station) talks about how the couplers that join the cars together create slack, which allows the energy to transfer and allows the locomotive to pull all those tons of freight,” Yachanin says.

Another station bringing home the physics of trains is an actual 8,500-pound wheelset that a visitor can push a short distance on a track rather easily.

“That’s the whole nature of trains — the friction is controlled by the bearings, and there’s so little surface area of the wheel on the actual track,” he says.

“All Aboard!” is the second major exhibit created by Great Lakes Science Center, the first being a multiphase Lego exhibition that ran much of the year. (It will be back by popular demand for a brief run following “All Aboard!,” Yachanin says.) Previously, the Science Center had brought in traveling exhibitions, which Yachanin says it still will do in the future.

For the celebration of trains, GLSC partnered with a couple of regional organizations, starting with the Cleveland-based Midwest Railway Preservation Society, which donated many pieces. Upon entering the exhibit space, guests will notice the terrifically preserved vintage railroad traffic light signal that once stood guard at tracks in Pennsylvania.

“All Aboard!” also benefits from a partnership with the National Model Railroad Association Ohio Division 4, which donated material for a few notable stations, including one where volunteers help guests build a train track and another in which three trains on separate tracks work their ways through and around a transparent case. The trains can be controlled to a degree by guests standing at the case.

There’s also a community build area, where families can put together tracks and run toy trains on them from a pile of supplies. (Or, perhaps more realistically, the kids can do that while the adults sit on benches surrounding the play space.)

PHOTOS BY ANITA T ORENICK “All Aboard! The Science of Trains,” an exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, is chock full of hands-on stations.

Even some small visitors will be able to move this 8,500-pound wheelset at a station that illustrates how metal wheels on a metal track make it easier for trains to move.