Holiday Trains display at Cincinnati museum taking two-year hiatus

For the first time since 1946, the Duke Energy Holiday Trains display won’t be a part of annual Christmas festivities in the Queen City.

“It’s something we don’t take lightly,” said Cincinnati Museum Center spokesman Cody Hefner.

The Museum Center decided to put the display on hiatus as Union Terminal undergoes more than $212 million in renovations.

“The trains are simply too fragile and too large to move to another space, so to prevent the risk of damaging them we won’t be displaying them this year,” Hefner said.

The display is currently being “sheltered in place” in the basement of the Museum Center until its new space is finished in the fall of 2018, he said. That means the public will not see the trains in 2017, either.

The Museum Center became the holiday train display’s permanent home in 2011 after Duke Energy approached staff about maintaining the aging holiday attraction.

For 65 years prior, the trains were displayed each holiday season inside the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. (CG&E) building’s lobby Downtown.

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