Maryland Transit Administration’s holiday train garden returns after 10-year hiatus

BALTIMORE — The Maryland Transit Administration is spreading Christmas cheer with a train garden and a “Holiday Bus.”

The “Train Garden” can be found at Mondawmin Metro Subway Station. People can visit the garden between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day. It features a subway train that travels through neighborhoods, zips past a fast-food restaurant and slides by a fire station, according to transportation staff.

People can interact with the garden by pushing buttons that make objects inside it come to life, transportation staff said.

The train garden was once a fixture in Baltimore’s holiday festivities, according to transportation staff. It was founded in 2007 by the Maryland Transit Administration’s former director of metro, Michael Davis.

The train made a seasonal appearance in Baltimore between 2007 and 2013.

“This year is the first time the train garden has come back since 2013,” Courtney Mims, the director of media relations for the Maryland Transit Administration, said. “Each year more interactive buttons have been added to the attraction.”

But the Holiday Bus was established long before that. It was created in 1969 by a group of bus operators who were also bus enthusiasts, Mims said.

“They found a retired bus, that still had some life in it,” she said. “They brought it back to life even more and added decorations. That became our first Holiday Bus.”

That tradition has continued more than a century later.

The Holiday Bus is free to the public and will provide transportation on weekdays and on Saturdays starting on Dec. 2. The weekday rides end on Dec. 22 but the Saturday schedule will continue until the year’s end. 

People who ride the bus can visit with Santa, receive a candy cane, listen to holiday music, and bask in festive decorations, she said.

The Holiday Bus has a fluctuating schedule. People who are interested in riding the bus can track it by looking for the sleigh icon on the Transit app, Mims said.

The Maryland Transit Administration will share clues about where the Holiday Bus can be found on its Facebook page, Instagram page, or on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.