Want to play with the trains at the Culver Academies Museum & Gift Shop? Special Open House May 31

May 25, 2011

Part of the new, working train layout featured at an open house Tuesday at the Culver Academies Museum & Gift Shop.

The community is invited to an open house to view The Culver Academies Museum & Gift Shop's new working model train layout Tuesday, May 31, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Present will be Academies senior Lawrence Dann-Fenwick, a Lake Forest, Ill. native, four year senior, and the current Unit Commander of Troop B, began work on the layout last November as part of his senior service project at the school.

The 4.5 by 6 foot layout is a tribute to that used by the student train club for nearly 40 years, located under the school's dining

hall and overseen by band director Col. Edward Payson. While considerably smaller than the 40 by 24 foot layout, the new one incorporates several of the original buildings and train cars from the campus layout, which was dismantled and destroyed in the mid-1980s.

Visitors will have a chance to meet and greet Dann-Fenwick, as well as watch the layout in action and even try their hand at running the trains, which will be running on the layout on an ongoing basis at the museum, located at 102 South Main Street in downtown Culver.

For more information, call 574-842-8842, or visit www.culver.org/museum.