The Museum of the American Railroad continues to be an educational and cultural attraction in downtown Frisco. With trains dating back to 1900, the museum houses more than 70 pieces of train equipment across 15 acres, a collection that ranks among the largest in the country.
The museum’s star attraction is TrainTopia, a 2,500-square-foot model railroad exhibit that recreates a rail journey throughout the American Southwest. It features seven operating rail lines and scenes spanning from West Texas oil fields to the Colorado mountains. Valued at more than $1 million, the exhibit was originally built by Steve Sanders and is the product of more than 20,000 man-hours of work. It was donated by the Sanders family after his death, and a $300,000 donation by Amanda and Brint Ryan helped move it out of the Sanders family home to its new location in the Frisco Discovery Center. The center, a year-round climate-controlled location for the exhibit, is a hub for cultural activities in Frisco.
The museum began as a small exhibit for the 1963 State Fair. The brainchild of State Fair manager Joseph Rucker and philanthropist Everett DeGolyer, it slowly grew in size and popularity. A resurgence in the 1990s led to the museum eventually outgrowing its original location in Fair Park. Since 2011, it has slowly been shifting its collection to Frisco, the town named for the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad…