CINCINNATI, Ohio — A Cincinnati holiday tradition turns 80 this year. Holiday Junction, featuring the Duke Energy Holiday Trains, opens Friday, Nov. 13, at Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal and runs through Jan. 4, 2027, the museum center announced.
The Duke Energy Holiday Trains first debuted downtown in 1946 and have delighted generations of Cincinnati families since, according to Cincinnati Museum Center. The display runs more than 300 rail cars and 50 locomotives past miniature passengers and snow-covered cars, with track-level views that let visitors study the layout up close, according to the museum center.
Holiday Junction surrounds the trains with winter scenes, including a Northern Lights display for family photos, an interactive storybook telling the trains’ eight-decade history through photographs, and a Holiday Scavenger Hunt hiding objects throughout the garden railway layout for visitors to find, according to Cincinnati Museum Center.
Santa Claus makes his grand arrival on Friday, Nov. 27, and will visit with children by his fireplace in the Ruthven Gallery next to Holiday Junction, according to the museum center and Southwest Ohio Parent’s holiday guide. The museum center is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Holiday Junction is included with museum admission and free for Cincinnati Museum Center members, according to Everything Cincy.
Also returning this season is the OMNIMAX film Rocky Mountain Express, following a historic steam locomotive through the Canadian Rockies, joined by a new domed-screen rail adventure, Train Time, according to Cincinnati Museum Center.
Union Terminal, at 1301 Western Avenue, is itself part of the draw: the art deco landmark has housed the museum center since the trains moved there permanently in 2011, after decades as a downtown department-store-era display that began with Cincinnati Gas & Electric, Duke Energy’s predecessor. Eighty seasons in, the trains remain one of the largest portable model railroad displays in the world — and, for many Cincinnati families, the official start of the holidays.
Holiday Junction runs Nov. 13 through Jan. 4, 2027. Families planning a Santa visit should note he does not arrive until Nov. 27; the trains, the scavenger hunt and the films start Friday.
Photo: Black Wolff, CC BY 2.5