The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE – The C&O Railway Heritage will hold its annual George Washington’s Train Show Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 18 and 19, at the Clifton Forge Armory and the C&O Railway Heritage Center.
The show is named after the nation’ s first president due to its proximity to his birthday and the railway’s most famous passenger train which was named after him.
The show will include the Atlantic Coast 5 Gaugers interactive layout featuring many different train lines and animated accessories with buttons for kids and adults to operate. It will also include a Thomas cab simulator.
There will also be displays of trains of other scales from the small, yet detailed, N scale to large G scale locomotives that operate on live steam.
The show will also have many vendors selling railroad related items such as model trains of all scales and sizes, toys such as Thomas and Chuggington, books, t-shirts, photographs and face painting. The show will also have vendors selling railroad antiques and china.
There will be an “Antiques Roadshow” style table where visitors can bring vintage railroad items to have them appraised and buyers will be on site.
The show will also include book signings. On Saturday, Walter Griggs Jr., author of “Collapse of Richmond’s Church Hill Tunnel” will be at the show. Sunday will feature author Larry Aaron who wrote “Wreck of Old 97.”
Admission to the show also includes entrance to the C&O Railway Heritage Center, a museum that features an exhibit hall with a 96 foot-long O scale operating train layout, railroad cars, the 614 steam locomotive and cabooses that visitors can tour, a replica signal tower for train watching and the recently opened new passenger station and gift shop.
Rides on the miniature train will be available for children and adults at the Heritage Center.
The show will open at 10 a.m. and close at 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, and will open at 1 p.m. and close at 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19.
Admission is $5 per person
For more information about this event, you may call the C&O Historical Society, 862-2210.
