There are fun little places you can’t really fly to. You wouldn’t spend/plan a whole vacation just for this one destination, but are definitely glad it crossed your path. If you’re traveling through Alamogordo to get to Ruidoso, Cloudcroft, Las Cruces, or El Paso, Texas, you may want to make a pit stop to the Alamogordo Toy Train Museum. It’s a small little building, but it still fits tons of toy trains. They have several scales/sizes, some running and some not running. It definitely sucks you in to how incredibly patient, time-consuming, and sense of accomplishment that this hobby can bring.

Train Museum - Interior

At the time we went, it was approximately $7 a person which included a tour of the museum, and a ride on their outdoor model train. The tour includes 3 rooms with running displays. They have a train track that is set up high near the ceiling, as well as one that is hanging upside down from the ceiling (not functional but cool to see). One that is electric with the wire overhead like the actual electric trains. And their grand finale is there largest room with a slight replica of the area, representing Alamogordo, an surrounding towns such as Cloudcroft, Carrizozo, Ruidoso, and others. Cloudcroft is a nearby town that is in the mountains. It is about a half hour drive into and up the mountain. You drive through a tunnel and it always fascinates me how much the landscape changes after going through the tunnel, like a portal. Depending which direction you’re going, it transforms from desert to forest. Soon you will be surrounded by pines and evergreens. As you get nearer to Cloudcroft, you will see a trestle. A trestle is a type of bridge or structure to hold something up. In this case it used to be for train tracks. One of the models pays homage to when this used to be a functioning railroad from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft.

About Cloudcroft

As I mentioned, you will be able to see the trestle as you drive in. You can pull over and take pictures if you’d like. Sometimes you will see people at the other end of the bridge and wonder how they got there. If you continue on the road, there will be like a rest area, where there are clean bathrooms. There is a trailhead there where you can get to the “other side” of the trestle. It is a fairly easy hike. There are some steep parts, and is maybe about a mile to get to. The scenery is beautiful, especially during the fall. But fall foliage happens extremely fast. You have about a 1 to 2 week window, about the 2nd and 3rd week of October. They also get snow quite regularly during the winter months. Which is great for all the nearby desert people that rarely get to see snow.

Train Museum - Exterior

The other part of admission was the ride on the G scale train, that runs along Alameda park and another set of real railroad tracks. We even got lucky and got to see a real train pass by alongside us as we were riding. It is a round trip that maybe takes 15-20 minutes. Back at the museum there is also a caboose. According to their website, it can be rented for kids parties, etc.

Consider stopping

As mentioned if you are passing through Alamogordo, or if Alamogordo is your destination, I would definitely consider adding this to your itinerary. Check out our video on Youtube of our experience or the gallery of photos taken from our experience.