Started in 2007 when we invited members of our mini-church to our house to play with some trains that rarely got played with. A small layout was set-up on our dining room table, track was laid out in the living room, so the kids could build their own layout, and an operating layout was set-up in the kitchen. This little get together was such a success that we decided to share it at our local churc
h. The next year, we hosted another train play day at The Edge Church in Atco, NJ. This event featured three layouts for the kids to play with, a small display table, and a multi-gauge operating layout on the stage. Unfortunately, this was the only Train Play Day event to be held at this church. In 2009, we hosted the Train Play Day at the Gibbsboro United Methodist Church in Gibbsboro, NJ; featuring four layouts for the kids to play with, a much larger 10 x 7.5-foot multi-gauge layout, and two display tables. We would continue to host Train Play Days at Gibbsboro United Methodist Church in 2010 and 2011. Besides Train Play Days, we also displayed an operating layout almost every Wednesday night during the school year and a huge holiday display for the holiday season to help promote our Train Play Days. Our final Train Play Day at GUMC featured three operating layouts, numerous display tables, three layouts for the kids to play with, and a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine. We had also upgraded to Command Control for our O gauge layout and DCC for the HO layout. Unfortunately, due to space availability and to the fact that we out grew their largest room, we were unable to host another Train Play Day at GUMC. In 2012, we set-up three operating layouts and two layouts for the kids to play with in a matter of hours at Fellowship Alliance Chapel in Medford, NJ for their Sunday Night Kids Club. We had an HO layout, an O gauge layout, and a G gauge layout. Due to the lack of set-up time, some layouts track plans were assembled ahead of time to reduce the time to troubleshoot through some track alignments during set-up. The kids loved this event and afterwards, they brought their parents in to see what we had done. Three years later in 2015, we approached one of the pastors at Immanuel Baptist Church of Maple Shade, NJ of the possibility of doing a Train Play Day and an event date was set. The first Train Play Day at Immanuel Baptist featured four operating layouts, several display tables, train videos, two layouts for the play with, and a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine. We have hosted Train Play Days at Immanuel Baptist in 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019 and we set up a large train display for the Maple Shade Holiday Festival in 2019. Even though our Train Play Days may look the same from year to year, there is always something new that has been added to the collection, form new locomotives or rolling stock and collector’s items to new ways to operate our many layouts.
