It’s one of the most beloved holiday traditions in Cincinnati — and it’s not happening this year.
The Duke Energy Holiday Trains will be on hiatus until 2018, the Cincinnati Museum Center reports. This display has been an annual holiday tradition in Cincinnati since 1946.
“It’s something we don’t take lightly,” said Cincinnati Museum Center spokesman Cody Hefner. The decision was made due to the massive, $212 million renovation project currently underway at Union Terminal.
Long-time Cincinnati residents will recall that the display used to be housed at the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. (CG&E) building’s lobby Downtown. In 2011, the exhibit was moved to the Museum Center permanently at the request of Duke Energy, who wanted the aging exhibit to be maintained by the Museum staff.
“The trains are simply too fragile and too large to move to another space, so to prevent the risk of damaging them we won’t be displaying them this year,” Hefner said.
The display is currently being sheltered in the basement of the Museum Center until its new space is finished in the fall of 2018. That means no Duke Energy Trains in 2016 or 2017! (But there’s still lots happening at the Museum Center in the meantime!)