Grand Central’s free model train display opens Nov. 13 with tiny NYC shops

Starting Friday, Nov. 13, model trains will be back on display at Grand Central Terminal, where the New York Transit Museum puts on its free holiday exhibit. It will stay up through February 2027.

The exhibit started in 2002 and has run every holiday season since. On a 34-foot “O” gauge layout built on two levels, Lionel trains loop from a miniature Grand Central past recognizable city landmarks to a snowy North Pole. The trains include Metro-North models, vintage subway sets and the Polar Express. No other free train exhibit like it exists in the city, and it attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year.

New miniature NYC storefronts by Danny Cortes

Danny Cortes, a miniature artist based in New York, built a new group of buildings for this year’s layout. His pieces recreate weathered brick, store signs and architectural details from ordinary neighborhood streets. Among them:

• La Borinqueña, a family-run grocery in South Williamsburg that shut in 2013, shown with Puerto Rican flags beneath its awning
• A pair of apartment buildings with ornate cornices and finely detailed windows
• Crazy Eddie, the electronics retailer that had 43 locations around the Northeast at its height
• Eric’s Comic Books, an invented neighborhood shop

The layout also tips its hat to Economy Candy, the family-owned sweets shop that has been open since 1937. In the museum shop, holiday shoppers will find blankets printed with the subway map, wooden Munipals train toys, token jewelry, T-shirts showing subway routes and more transit-themed gifts.

Holiday Train Show hours and location

The trains are in the Transit Museum’s gallery and shop at Grand Central, inside the shuttle passage at Park Avenue and 42nd Street. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends, and admission is free. For another free holiday outing in Midtown, see the Bryant Park Winter Village guide.