The B&O model train display
In 1935, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad introduced a streamlined, air-conditioned train for the Royal Blue service between Washington D.C. and New York City. The B&O’s Public Relations Department initiated the Royal Blue modeling contest intending to drum up interest in the improved service.
An article with contest rules appeared in the March 1936 edition of “Model Craftsman” magazine.
As a result, the B&O Railroad built the first version of this model railroad in 1936 at a cost of $50,000, an enormous sum of money during the depths of the Great Depression, featuring the Royal Blue trainset. That original layout, with its three main loops, its locomotives and cars, is just part of what you’ll see at the Duke Energy train display.
In 1941, the display was made portable and expanded to occupy a 16’-by-46’ platform in the lobby of the B&O’s Wheeling, W. Va. station and thus a traveling display was born. The portable display grew, as the railroad grew, through the ’40s, the ’50s and into the ’60s.
Eventually, the size of the display, controls and rolling stock would require a dedicated boxcar to transport the display throughout the B&O system.
During the early years, the B&O model trains on the display represented exactly what was traveling on the real tracks. Every time the B&O took an older locomotive out of service or added a new car to its system, a miniature reproduction was removed or added to the display.
Then, in the 1950s, the B&O made the decision to bring back some of the retired models for their historical value. So, today, you’ll see early steam locomotives operating on the same tracks with the more modern diesel engines.
During WWII, the layout was displayed in Army and Veterans Administration hospitals. It was also used by the Army Transportation Corps in training troops in railroad operations. In 1944 the layout was displayed at the Baltimore National Bank and in 1945 at Hutzler’s Department store in Baltimore during the holiday season.
How the display came to Cincinnati
The story goes something like this: While visiting Baltimore in 1945, Ed Hodgetts, an executive at the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company, took his family to Hutzler’s Department store to see the B&O display. Hodgetts young son Craig was enamored of the display and upon returning to Cincinnati, found out from his classmate Henry Hall, whose father Frank just so happened to be the division master mechanic of the B&O, that the railroad owned the display.
No doubt more than a little amount of boyhood pleading took place, and the layout made its first appearance at the Cincinnati Gas & Electric building lobby on Fourth Street in downtown Cincinnati for the 1946 holiday season. Now, after 1946, the B&O Railroad had planned to install the display in the company’s museum in Baltimore.
However, since it had been so popular at the CG&E lobby during the holiday season that year, CG&E executives requested that it be displayed annually in Cincinnati.
It has been reported that the acquisition of the B&O by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad during the 1960s prompted the need to find a permanent home for the layout. Thus in 1968, the relocation of the layout was made permanent with the display remaining at the CG&E building each holiday season until 2010. After each holiday season, the display was dismantled and stored at a local warehouse.
The display was then reinstalled each November and manned by CG&E and Duke Energy employees and retirees for many years.
In 1994, CG&E changed its name to Cinergy and was acquired by the North Carolina based Duke Energy in 2006. The display was subsequently renamed the “Duke Energy Holiday Trains”. The display was moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center, formerly known as Cincinnati Union Terminal, in 2011.
The display is now maintained by volunteers and staff at the Museum Center and operated by specially selected trainmasters as part of the Holiday Junction display.
What the display offers
The Duke Energy trains, part of the overall Holiday Junction display, includes more than 50 steam and diesel locomotives and 300 railcars from various eras. Like the real thing, the B&O trains were built to last.
The steam engines and rolling stock were handmade, sometimes from the same materials as their life-size prototypes. The models were hand-painted and hand-lettered with authentic B&O railroad paints.
A few modern diesel era engines and rolling stock have been acquired in the past few years and are occasionally seen operating on the display.
The layout is a rare, third outside rail O-gauge system that requires specially trained museum staff and volunteers called Trainmasters to run. The O-gauge scale means that every one-quarter inch on the display represents one foot on a real train. So, everything you see is 1/48th of actual size.
Much of the rolling stock, steam locomotives and railcars, are original dating back to the 1940’s. As a result, the trains require an extensive, fully equipped machine shop to keep it in working order, since new parts for the layout are not an option.
While it may seem that Duke Energy trains travel slowly, it’s important to remember that they are traveling at actual scale speed. The basic 3-track loop is 1/48th of a mile around, representing a full mile of real track.
The Duke Energy trains travel that loop in one minute, so it is actually traveling at 60 miles per hour — not at all slow for a real train.
Other train displays of interest at Holiday Junction include an original Carlisle & Finch electric train, manufactured in Cincinnati in 1904, as well as a traditional 1940’s era Lionel train display and a modern equivalent.
Other portions of the Holiday Junction display feature “Thomas the Train Engine” display, vintage displays of Lionel trains and a traditional Holiday themed train display on the upper level.
Given the closure of the former EnterTRAINment Junction display in West Chester Twp., Holiday Junction is now the largest operating indoor train display in the Tri-State area this holiday season.
Jim Krause is the author of the newly published book “Wreck of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway – A Pioneering Railroad Undone by Greed and Fraud”, available for purchase at the Butler County Historical Society. He can be reached at jdkrause@fuse.net.
HOW TO GO
What: Duke Energy Holiday Trains at Holiday Junction
Where: 1301 Western Ave., Cincinnati
Cost: Free for Cincinnati Museum Center members. For non-members, Museum admission, which includes the Holiday Junction display, varies from $19.50-$24.50 depending upon date.
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily
Dates: Nov. 14 to Jan. 5, 2026
Parking: Free for Cincinnati Museum members. Non-members $6.
Phone: 513-287-7000
Website: cincymuseum.org/holiday-junction
Email: information@cincymuseum.org
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