Deal buys time for Twin City Model Railroad Museum to find new home

The Twin City Model Railroad Museum will keep its miniature trains chugging on through March at its Bandana Square location in St. Paul, thanks to a new rental agreement.

The agreement will buy the museum time as it looks for a new location for its model train exhibit.

The museum, run by about 150 volunteers, had fallen on hard times and could no longer afford the rent for its two exhibits in Bandana Square. Facing two eviction notices, museum volunteers were left struggling to find a way to save their beloved museum from permanently closing.

The museum found a temporary fix at an eviction hearing Monday with Wellington Management. The agreement will require the museum to repay about $30,000 in unpaid expenses and pay the full rent and operating expenses of $8,976 a month starting in December.

"The court proceeding went well," said Marshall Tanick, the museum's attorney. "It looks like the museum is on the right track."

The temporary solution is still bothersome to longtime museum volunteers, like Paul Gruetzman, who worry about moving out of Bandana Square.

"It's a huge task that hasn't changed," he said.

Founded in 1934, the museum is a nostalgic reminder of Minnesota's past, including the Washburn A Mill and the 1913 Great Northern Station.

Kathleen Wessel, 39, of North Branch, visited the museum as a teenager. She now brings along her two sons to see the model trains. Her 6-year-old son, she said, was in tears when he first heard his favorite museum could soon close.

"He completely lost it," she said. "When he told his dad what was going to happen, he started crying again."

Wessel said it is a family tradition to visit the museum's Night Train exhibit during the Christmas season.

"It would be a shame if that could not be available for future generations," she said. The museum will start the Christmas event early this year, on Nov. 7.

Bob Niederkorn, 85, has volunteered at the museum for more than 20 years. He said he would have liked the museum to stay at its current location.

"It's going to be horrendous job taking that thing apart and moving it," he said.