Mr. Gilbert's Railroad 2019

Eli Whitney Museum

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The Gilbert Project – Holiday Trains

Mr. Gilbert's Railroad 2019 – Nov 29th thru Jan19

The Museum's Annual Exhibition of American Flyer Trains

Thumbnail of Mr. Gilbert's Railroad 2019 project

The Eli Whitney Museum's annual hands on exhibition of American Flyer Trains opens , Friday November 29th at noon. Classic toy trains produced by New Haven's A.C. Gilbert Company that still run beautifully after 50 years.



This year's Gilbert Project Study considers the learning toys that the A.C. Gilbert Company developed 100 years ago as antecedents of the MAKE Movement today. Both are rooted in a passion for making things that is ageless.

Timeless Erector parts will challenge young hands to experiment.



Saturdays: 10am – 3pm
and
Sundays: 12 – 5pm, though January 19th.
Closed Christmas and New Year's Day.

With special viewing hours from 12 to 5pm on
December 23, 24, 26, 27,30, 31.

Admission: Free
Wooden trains to construct: $11

American Flyer Curator: Walter Zawalich
Principal Artist: Hunter Nesbitt Spence
Principal Model Maker: Mike Dunn

A.C. Gilbert purchased, redesigned and produced American Flyer trains relatively late in his career. It was also relatively late in the history of American railroads. Airports and highways were reshaping American geography. Gilbert’s trains recollected past power and glory of rail. Gilbert's trains recollected the power and glory of his life. Our Holiday Train Exhibit will follow that journey.


Wooden Toy Trains

Wooden Trains at the Eli Whitney Museum. To build here.
$11. Many other projects also available to build for all ages which range from $11 – $15.


The Layout

Saturdays: 10am – 3pm
Sundays: 12 – 5pm

With special viewing hours from 12 to 5pm on
Tuesday 12/24, 26,27, 30, 31

The holidays are a time of remembering. Each Thanksgiving, the Eli Whitney Museum reaches deep into New Haven’s attic, to unpack and display a tradition built here more than 60 years ago. Just after World War II, The A.C. Gilbert Company introduced its American Flyer Trains. Gilbert trains, with their lively movements, their carefully crafted sound, their bright lights, the cedar scent of their smoke, won an enduring place in our collective memory. New Haven built an icon of the holidays.

The Eli Whitney Museum collects and studies the products and legacy of A.C. Gilbert and his company. Between 1909 and 1964, the Gilbert Company was the premiere producer of learning toys in the world. Its showroom in New York, the Gilbert Hall of Science, was an emporium of experimental learning and a forerunner of the modern science museum. The Eli Whitney Museum’s workshops still nurture that experimental learning.

Alfred Carlton Gilbert was drawn to New Haven by Yale, especially by Yale's preeminence in sports and by New Haven’s lively vaudeville scene. Gilbert won a Gold Medal for pole vaulting in the 1908 Olympics. He earned living expenses performing magic on New Haven’s stages. He studied Medicine at Yale’s Sheffield Science School. His gift for magic led to a part time, then full time, partnership with John Petrie producing stage tricks for magicians in New Haven and New York. Riding a train to New York, Gilbert saw inspiration in the new bridges and towers. He sketched the nuts, bolts, and girders of a model steel construction system he would call the Erector Set. It caught the spirit of the age. With it, Gilbert built a company that shaped the imagination and invention of three generations of American boys.

Gilbert’s American Flyer trains were the last of his great product lines. Three thousand men and women worked at Erector Square in Fair Haven. Gilbert’s two-railed, realistically detailed locomotives were a spunky David to the industry Goliath – Lionel. The Gilbert line grew with great promise through the mid 1950’s until it encountered an unconquerable future: television. Television stole time and attention. It sold disposable toys. It substituted passive entertainment for active learning. Gilbert produced trains for just 20 years.

Still American Flyer trains endure. Each year the Museum lets children run locomotives and rolling stock that their grandparents might have played with. That’s a tribute to thoughtful engineering, excellent workmanship, and Walter Zawalich. Zawalich is a scientist at Yale who restores and maintains the trains and who has trained Museum apprentices to assist in their care. With a few modern parts and ample ingenuity, this gifted volunteer seems to keep the trains in perpetual motion.

The Trains Depart on Time(lapse)

Our intricate 30 foot, half ton A.C, Gilbert Train layout is transported to its off season lair in 2 minutes, 30 seconds.

Actually it takes 4 hours and 20 Apprentices. It will return Friday, November 29, 2019 at 12 noon.

Time lapse video taken and edited by Apprentices Jonah Heiser and Connor Larouque.

Driving the Trains

Driving the Trains

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