Maine Central Model Railroad

Seashore Trolley Museum’s Maine Central Model Railroad building is open year-round! Stop by to visit this new exhibit Thursdays-Saturdays from 10AM-4PM this winter and spring. The building is also open on Wednesdays during Maine and New Hampshire school vacation weeks. More hours will be added when the rest of the museum’s 350-acre campus re-opens for the season on Saturday, May 2, 2026 for heritage trolley rides and more.

Tickets to view the model railroad are $5 per person and children five and under are free. Seashore Trolley Museum members are free; Family Memberships are just $80/year and include up to two adults and three children per museum visit on general admission days. Learn more about Seashore's membership options at https://trolleymuseum.org/support

Your ticket is good all day! Check in at our retail counter when you arrive.

The Maine Central Model Railroad is the State of Maine’s largest HO-scale model railroad. This beautifully crafted exhibit originated from the home of Helen and Harold “Buz” Beal, from Jonesport, Maine. For decades, the couple opened their home to guests from all over the world to view their model railroad. From Quoddy Lighthouse to the mountains of Maine, to the paper mills and Dragon Cement, street blocks representing the communities the Maine Central Model Railroad operated through and several roundhouses, tunnels, rivers and the ocean, their layout had it all. Best-selling author Stephen King even provided the designs of his Victorian home in Bangor to the Beal’s, and they replicated it expertly.

Seashore Trolley Museum accepted the Beal’s model railroad donation in 2020 and began constructing a new building to house the donation, with thanks to a generous $3.4 million donation by Hansjoerg Wyss and the Wyss Medical Foundation. The building and the model railroad opened to the public in May 2024 and the model railroad’s winter operations allow Seashore Trolley Museum to become a year-round museum for the community to enjoy.

Emmalyn Bentley of Cape Neddick, Maine has also donated a section of Seashore Trolley Museum’s model railroad. Bentley also created an HO-scale layout of the Maine Central Model Railroad as well as the Atlantic Shore Line Railway, with the communities of Cape Neddick and York, Maine featured in her model. Seashore volunteers adapted Bentley’s donation into the museum’s model railroad and this is a wonderful addition to the overall exhibit.

New sections of the model railroad have also been developed over the past six months by museum volunteers. Ellsworth, Maine is currently under construction, and following this project, volunteers will begin working to build models of the communities of Saco, Biddeford, Kennebunkport, Kennebunk, and Arundel, along with a model of Seashore Trolley Museum. The layout will add trolley lines to showcase the museum’s trolley collection in HO-scale.

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Host or Publisher Katie Orlando