Colorado Model Railroad Museum in Greeley poised for long-awaited expansion

GREELEY — The Colorado Model Railroad Museum in Greeley may soon get to push full steam ahead with an expansion project.

Museum officials have grand plans to expand the museum to allow for classroom and summer camp space, plans which were submitted this week to the city of Greeley. While city planners ruminate on it, museum officials say it may be a couple of years still before any expansion can be realized.

“We’re bigger than our walls and have programming that needs space,” said Michelle Kempema, executive director of the museum, which will host the Big Boy No. 4014 steam engine at 12:35 p.m. Oct. 23 on its final leg home to Cheyenne after its Heartland of America tour.

The museum has been in a 10,000 square-foot space since Dave Trussell opened it in 2002. It became a nonprofit organization in 2008 and opened to the public in 2009. He has since retired, and the museum is manned by volunteers from across Colorado and the country.  

The museum, which hosted five summer camps this year, sees about 20,000 visitors per year, and has hosted visitors this year from 30 countries and all 50 states.

“The only space we have to do education is the lobby, and we can’t do that unless we’re closed to the public,” Kempema said. “So, any programming we do has to be outside of open hours. We have no classroom or gathering space of any significant size to do summer camps, teach model railroading and wonderful STEM and STEAM programming that comes with it.”

Having extra space also would allow the museum to display its Department 56 Christmas Village collection.

The museum has a warehouse on site, but it is not structurally sound, so it would have to come down. 

Museum officials hope to build onto the existing building, and the board of directors will likely decide by next spring whether to do a capital fundraising campaign to support expansion, Kempema said.

“It’s long-term — we’d kick off the silent phase of our capital campaign in the next year if we move forward,” Kempema said. “Hopefully, we’ll be building within five years. This plan now is to understand our property and what we need to do to build on the property. Of course, if a donor walked in tomorrow with the necessary funds, we’d roll with it.”

Medicare has designated model railroading as a hobby that is good for physical and mental health, Kempema said. With that, Medicare offers to cover membership costs to those 65 and older in the National Model Railroaders Association.

“When I first started working here 10 years ago, I realized we had no place to do education. We’ve known we needed classrooms for a long time,” Kempema said. “Prior to COVID, our plan was to add on a building out back for education. We’ve looked at so many possibilities, we knew we needed land, we had to take down power poles. We had to lease land from the railroad. We’ve been on a long journey that’s finally coming” to fruition.

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