If you go

What: "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"

When: Through Sept. 14


Tickets: $3-$5; free for children 3 and younger

Info: 303-651-8374 or longmontmuseum.org

Between 1991 and 2008, Golden couple Alan and Ruth Warwick worked on a model train layout. The diarama-like project depicts parts of Colorado during a period starting in the 1930s when steam gave way to diesel power. The details are what's most impressive about the layout, which shows a downtown-like area in a small town that's encircled by train tracks. The structures, the street lights, the miniature people on the sidewalks — it's all so charmingly real.

The Warwicks' layout is featured in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," a new exhibition at the Longmont Museum & Cultural Center. The show includes other other model train layouts, but it also features model planes and toy cars. A large interactive section allows children to try their hand at paper-plane making, computer simulators for model-plane flying and other activities.

The display runs through Sept. 14, and the museum has planned special programs related to the show throughout its run.

The model train layouts are the show's scene stealers, and they demonstrate why this level of enthusiasm isn't child's play. The layouts take the kind of patience and imagination typically associated with fine art, and viewers could spend hours exploring details in the layouts. They aren't about model trains. They're about creating worlds, whole environments, even narratives with characters.

But there's plenty of child's play going on in the show.

One station allows visitors to build a "rocket plane" — this is basically a paper plane, except you construct it with a cotton-candy cone that you can place over an air pump, then you push a button to trigger a burst of air and launch the plane like a rocket.

Other stations are set up for wooden model train activities and toy car racing. A pair of computer monitors are available to enable visitors to pilot virtual radio-control airplanes.

A detail of the &quot;Rattlesnake Ridge&quot; model railway layout created by the Estes Valley Model Railroaders, on display at the Longmont Museum as part
A detail of the "Rattlesnake Ridge" model railway layout created by the Estes Valley Model Railroaders, on display at the Longmont Museum as part of the "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" exhibition, through Sept. 14. (Longmont Museum / Courtesy photo)

Model planes hang from the ceiling in one section of the exhibit, and another section provides a history of the American fascination with toy cars. Car dealerships, we learn, used to produce promotional models as part of making sales to grown-ups.

"A boy (or, rarely, a girl) might receive a model when his parents bought a new car," according to a wall card. "Sometimes the model was also a bank, given to the child with the sales pitch, 'Now you can start saving your pennies to buy your own Chevrolet.' "

Some kids have a piggy bank. Others have a Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop.

One display area is devoted to Hot Wheels. These were first produced in 1968 by the owners of Mattel, Ruth and Elliot Handler, after they pitched the idea for the toy cars to JC Penney's. The display includes the "Sweet Sixteen," the first 16 Hot Wheels ever made. One of them is a VW Beetle. Another is a Dodge Deora, carrying a pair of surfboards.

These toys are more than 40 years old. But this exhibit is proof they're still pretty cool.

A museum curator gives a tour of the exhibit at noon every Tuesday. Details on other programs related to the exhibit, including radio-controlled flying events, can be found on the museum website, longmontmuseum.org.
