Train Days Returns as Northern Iron Horse Railroad Society Marks 40 Years

Christopher Muller was a kid from Cass Lake when the Northern Iron Horse Railroad Society first welcomed him more than 30 years ago. This Saturday, as the club's president, he will help open Train Days at the Beltrami County History Center in Bemidji, the annual model-railroad event returning for approximately its 12th edition, one year after the club marked its 40th anniversary.

Train Days runs Saturday, April 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, April 12, from noon to 4 p.m. at 130 Minnesota Ave. SW. The event, co-hosted by the Beltrami County Historical Society, will feature model railroad layouts in N, HO, and O gauge scales, a LEGO city and railroad display, a model train swap meet and vendor tables, children's storytimes and coloring page giveaways, live music, and food truck service. Visitors can also step aboard the X259 caboose, a 1948 Great Northern Railway steel cupola car parked permanently on the tracks outside the building.

The Northern Iron Horse Railroad Society was founded in 1985, evolving from what founding-era member Andy Mack describes as the most modest of origins. "We started meeting casually, wherever we could, we met for the first time at a coffee shop," Mack said. Over four decades, those informal gatherings gave way to a permanent, all-in-one layout built in the History Center's basement. The club holds weekly Tuesday evening meetings at 7 p.m. and opens its layout to the public each April through Train Days, which was earlier known as Trains at the Depot.

Muller, who joined as a child and has risen to lead the club, credits the hobby with a pull that is easier to feel than explain. "It's a disease and there's no explanation or cause for it, there's no cure and it only gets worse as time goes on," he said. "Model railroading and railroading stays with you, it just grows over time."

The building itself is inseparable from the history on display inside it. The History Center occupies the 1912 Great Northern Railway Depot, a 217-foot-long, 7,000-square-foot Neo-Classical structure built in red brick and sandstone, and the last depot personally commissioned by Great Northern Railway magnate James J. Hill. Hill had visited Bemidji in January 1912, was entertained by the Commercial Club at the Markham Hotel, and promised the city a new brick depot. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. After serving passengers until the late 1950s and freight until the mid-1980s, it was boarded up and slated for demolition before a nearly $2 million adaptive reuse effort, including a $650,000 state capital bonding bill, saved it. The History Center opened in December 2000.

The railroad's original impact on Bemidji is woven into the permanent exhibits. In the summer of 1898, Great Northern Railway completed the first major east-west trackage through the pine lands of north-central Minnesota, running through Bemidji and immediately transforming it from an isolated pioneer community into a logging boomtown. BNSF Railway still operates trains on the line outside the History Center today.

Sitting on those same tracks is the X259 caboose, the 30-foot steel car donated by the East Grand Forks Northern Lights Model Railroad Association. It arrived in January 2024 following a fundraising campaign and was formally dedicated at Train Days 2025. "The caboose is one more rail in the long track of history that connects Bemidji to the Great Northern Railroad," said BCHS Executive Director Emily Thabes.

Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for veterans, senior citizens, and tribal members, and $3 for students from kindergarten through college; BCHS members and SNAP recipients enter free. Pricing for 2026 should be confirmed with the organizers. Reach the History Center at depot@beltramihistory.org or (218) 444-3376; event details are posted at beltramihistory.org/calendar.