San Diego Model Railroad Museum

San Diego Model Railroad Museum

San Diego Model Railroad Museum
4.5
Thursday
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Friday
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Saturday
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Sunday
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
About
The San Diego Model Railroad Museum was established in January of 1983. SDMRM has been a resource for model train aficionados, artist, architects, engineers, and families in San Diego for over 30 years. We spark curiosity in San Diego’s youth with educational programming that includes developmental milestones like critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving via our tailored school workshops and summer camps.
Duration: 1-2 hours
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  • Poke_it_with_a_stick
    83 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    How is this so fun?!
    I don't know much about trains so I thought that this would be an hour of fun while I went around the park. However, it was utterly delightful and I went around twice in case I missed anything the first time. Its great for children, but adult visitors must prepare to embrace their inner child because the whole museum is a giant labour of love to create a massive eye-spy of fun things ranging from cute diorama to truly bizarre scenes. Don't forget to pick up the check list of things to look for, there are a lot of things you could miss if you don't know to look out for them. The museum is in the basement, so it could be easily overlooked, but is well worth a visit to be delighted and amused by all the adventures of the inhabitants of miniature San Diego.
    Visited January 2023
    Written April 2, 2023
  • Grady F
    Oxford, United Kingdom12 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    Trains in Balboa Park
    The location in the middle of Balboa Park was great. There were many intricate designs, of the trains and the backgrounds. The one downside was that there was no clear way around the museum, so you could easily end up missing half of it.
    Visited September 2023
    Traveled with family
    Written November 4, 2023
  • HypnoWarrior
    Porirua, New Zealand1,117 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    For lovers of rail and trains, young or old
    We've come here a few times in year gone by. It's still pretty much the same, with a few new additions each time. Great for the young and old or anyone who loves rail / trains. You can easily spend 2 to 3 hours here if you look at everything, but 2 hours is probably more than enough time. The cost per person has increased quite a lot since we were here about 4 years ago.. The far end room has a lot for the kids, with a mini treasure hunt as well.
    Visited September 2023
    Traveled with family
    Written January 6, 2024
  • Jeff S
    Perth, Australia1,271 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Totally surprised
    I know nothing about model railways but a friend wanted to go. I had a hard time keeping up with him on the walk in! Once inside I thought “ok this is cool,” thinking I could see it all from one spot. How wrong I was. This place is massive. It just keeps going. I started looking at details and saw details within details, and found myself mesmerised with the craftsmanship and effort that’s gone into these displays. Right down to every fence post and the escapee chickens… it was incredible. I love how you get small glimpses of what’s behind the scenes and how they build the landscapes and electrics. If you go, don’t rush. Pick a small section when you walk in and look really closely at the detail. It’s so much more than just a big train set 👍
    Visited March 2024
    Traveled with friends
    Written March 6, 2024
These reviews are the subjective opinion of Tripadvisor members and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Popular mentions

4.5
4.5 of 5 bubbles551 reviews
Excellent
328
Very good
166
Average
39
Poor
9
Terrible
9

AF6096
Tequesta, FL83 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2023
While walking through Balboa park discovered this museum. Something I wanted to see. If you like miniaturization and are interested in model trains it is quite a display. I really enjoyed it.
My only complaint and I'm not sure the museum would be the ones responsible, but the amount of out of control children in this place lessened the experience for me. All I wanted to do was look at the trains and obnoxious children constantly running in and in front of me really dampened the whole thing. There should be some clearer rules on the monitoring of children's behavior.
Written February 22, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

HypnoWarrior
Porirua, New Zealand1,117 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2023 • Family
We've come here a few times in year gone by. It's still pretty much the same, with a few new additions each time. Great for the young and old or anyone who loves rail / trains. You can easily spend 2 to 3 hours here if you look at everything, but 2 hours is probably more than enough time. The cost per person has increased quite a lot since we were here about 4 years ago.. The far end room has a lot for the kids, with a mini treasure hunt as well.
Written January 6, 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Grady F
Oxford, UK12 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2023 • Family
The location in the middle of Balboa Park was great. There were many intricate designs, of the trains and the backgrounds. The one downside was that there was no clear way around the museum, so you could easily end up missing half of it.
Written November 4, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Poke_it_with_a_stick
Bristol, England83 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2023
I don't know much about trains so I thought that this would be an hour of fun while I went around the park. However, it was utterly delightful and I went around twice in case I missed anything the first time.

Its great for children, but adult visitors must prepare to embrace their inner child because the whole museum is a giant labour of love to create a massive eye-spy of fun things ranging from cute diorama to truly bizarre scenes. Don't forget to pick up the check list of things to look for, there are a lot of things you could miss if you don't know to look out for them.

The museum is in the basement, so it could be easily overlooked, but is well worth a visit to be delighted and amused by all the adventures of the inhabitants of miniature San Diego.
Written April 2, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Reed
Orlando, FL1,508 contributions
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Jun 2023 • Couples
I really wanted to love the San Diego Model Railroad Museum but I ended up just being a bit bored and disappointed. While there is a lot to see, when we went it seemed that many of the displays were barely operating with just one train, or under refurbishment or the trains were going incredibly slow. I can imagine that some people might enjoy this more but as a casual model train enthusiast it just seemed somewhat anticlimactic. They do have lots of friendly (and some not so friendly) volunteers that will be happy to talk to you about what they are working on. There is a nice sized gift shop that is mostly kid oriented.
Written December 19, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Jeff S
Perth, Australia1,271 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2024 • Friends
I know nothing about model railways but a friend wanted to go. I had a hard time keeping up with him on the walk in!
Once inside I thought “ok this is cool,” thinking I could see it all from one spot. How wrong I was. This place is massive. It just keeps going.
I started looking at details and saw details within details, and found myself mesmerised with the craftsmanship and effort that’s gone into these displays. Right down to every fence post and the escapee chickens… it was incredible.
I love how you get small glimpses of what’s behind the scenes and how they build the landscapes and electrics.
If you go, don’t rush. Pick a small section when you walk in and look really closely at the detail. It’s so much more than just a big train set 👍
Written March 6, 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

tencatdaddy
Athens, GA414 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2023
to kill while at Balboa Park and am glad I visited. It is hard to fathom the amount of work that went into some of the displays and the fact that many are geographically accurate is just amazing.
The area is seriously sensory overload as there must be two dozen different displays.
If you have any interest at all in model railroad then by all means you should visit.
The only downside is that there are no docents in most of the area and explanations are not always complete.
Written January 21, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

David B
Toronto, Canada361 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2020
I enjoyed model trains for many years, so this was great to see, giant layouts with information about the real life geographic inspirations to build them. BUT, a few big misses. Relatively little information about the evolution of the hobby and the how technology today allows many new aspects. Limited information about techniques for recreating landscapes and almost nothing about non-American model trains (there are many interesting variations.) So, for big train layouts, they are a 5.0, but as a museum, barely 2.5. Fun to watch the trains run just the same. Best fun fact, Rod Stewart (yes, that Rod Stewart) is a big model train buff, who knew?
Written January 4, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

hnshopper
Dunwoody, GA322 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2018
We purchased our tickets with the Go city card. This allowed us to get our railroad museum at a discount with other San Diego attractions. We had a large party of 6 adults and 4 kids (11,7,6,5). The museum is downstairs underneath the photography museum and the San Diego history center. The kids LOVED the trains. They wanted to move through the space over and over and watch all the different scales of trains. I enjoyed it as well. Don’t miss the small outdoor display and the lower level display room. The gift shop is also very nice. Although they were tired from our morning at the zoo they did not want to leave the model railroad museum. We had my husband go up and order some food from the “cafe” upstairs and then I brought them out to grilled cheese and hotdogs when it was ready. Highly recommend if you love trains and are visiting San Diego.
Written July 24, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

jmonte922
New York City, NY74 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
I took my ten year old son to this little museum hidden away in Baboa park. Its an affordable afternoon, and if you are a San Diego resident, you can take advantage of the selected free Tuesday each month ( we just dropped a donation into the jar...). Its a small museum, but we spent a good two hours at least, as my son wanted to look over every detail of each model. This museum is run by volunteers, and is really a treasure. I admit, I had expected to be a little bored, but it turned out to be a great day.
Written May 24, 2009
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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