RealRail's 47th Train Show Moves to Venice Community Center, Tables Sold Out

Venice Community Center was the new home for RealRail’s 47th Annual Train Show and Sale Feb. 21–22, 2026, after the show spent more than two decades in Bradenton. The Greater Florida LEGO Users Group noted it has attended the event for 20+ years with its LEGO train layout and said, “We always have a blast running trains and talking about our display,” while also recording that in 2026 the show moved locations to Venice, FL.

The two-day event was presented by the Railroad Education and Learning Center of Florida, Inc. and followed hours listed on the NMRA calendar: Saturday 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. and Sunday 10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. The Venice Community Center address is 326 S. Nokomis Ave., Venice, FL 34285. Admission on the NMRA listing was $13 for adults and children 13 and under were free with a paid adult. For more information the NMRA listing shows Allen Novak as contact at alnovak [at] tampabay.rr.com and phone 941-962-8542.

Listings disagree on the size of the dealer room. The NMRA entry specifically notes a Florida Garden Railroad Society display and “120 dealer tables,” while a Railfan timetable described the show as “one of the largest train shows on the west coast of Florida” and listed “100 dealer tables” with vendors selling new and used model trains in all scales and gauges. Neither the calendar listings nor the club pages in the supplied material explicitly reconcile the two table counts or confirm whether dealer tables were sold out for the 2026 show.

Railfan and TrainShows.net both carried event listings for Feb. 21–22, and the show appeared on regional club calendars such as the North Central Florida Model Railroad Club. Those club pages include descriptions of family-oriented features commonly found at local shows, a Thomas the Tank Engine set with an operating “Cranky” crane and a wooden switching-puzzle game whose previous-year winner was noted as an eight-year-old, although the club text does not explicitly state every feature was presented at RealRail 2026.

Exhibits and operating layouts were prominent in the listings: Railfan mentioned operating model railroads and displays across scales and gauges, NMRA singled out the Florida Garden Railroad Society display, and GFLUG documented its LEGO layout among the operating displays. The presence of long-time participants such as GFLUG and the Florida Garden Railroad Society underscores continuity as the show reaches its 47th year.

The event remains listed on regional and national calendars, and the NMRA entry frames it within the association’s listings. The organizer contact shown in listings is Allen Novak at alnovak [at] tampabay.rr.com and 941-962-8542 for anyone seeking exhibitor lists or official reconciled figures for dealer-table counts and attendance following the Venice move.