WHY WE NEED DONATIONS

The Toy Train Depot survives on public support as we receive neither city nor county monetary support. The City of Alamogordo is gracious to lease the park land we use in exchange for the tourists our business attracts. Therefore, no taxes are used to keep us going and we find that grants do not accept operational expenses as a basis for grant fundings. Our ticket sales do not nearly cover our operating costs. Your contributions help keep the TTD “chugging” along and we certainly appreciate your support. The Toy Train Depot has been an established landmark in Alamogordo since 1990, and we look forward to entertaining and enriching all who come to the TTD.

HOW MAY I CONTRIBUTE?

Volunteer: Probably the best and most rewarding for yourself and the Toy Train Depot is to voluntarily contribute time and ideas, to the preservation and operation of the museum and our trains. If you live close, or are on a longer vacation or a snowbird, we have many projects, like keeping the layouts operating and clean. Mechanically minded volunteers work on the model rolling stock, layout troubleshooting, doing maintenance projects, and outdoors in the repair and operation of the park locomotives, cars, and track, and the upkeep of the museum buildings, or for paperwork, then there is searching and writing larger project grants applications. Just ask for an interview with one of our staff, and set up some days/hours and mentorship to join our volunteer force.

Donations of Stuff: TTD welcomes old model trains / track and accessories. Much of our displays have come from local attics. We can refurbish/clean up train sets to raffle away at Christmas, add railroad books to our large library. Railroad memorabilia can find a place in our full sized railroad operational items. Most every donation finds a good home at TTD.

Monetary Donations: The Toy Train Depot operates on earnings of the gift shop, museum tickets, and tickets to ride our park trains; however the costs of operation and maintenance for our museum, trains is not met by our earnings. We appreciate your donations via PayPal or business/personal check, and as a 501(C)(3) organization; all contributions can be tax deductible. If you want to support a specific part of the TTD, like a designated project or area of interest; this special support is certainly possible. If you would like to leave us as a beneficiary to your insurance or living will, we can work with you to establish this relationship too.

We work at making the Toy Train Depot as children friendly as possible, and we also accept wooden train toys, tracks and books for youngsters to enjoy, and to possibly refurbish and recycle as awards, holiday gifts, and active play area items. We also appreciate any necessities such as paper towels, toilet paper, paint and painting supplies.

Methods to donate

  • On line via PayPal.com
  • Buying season (annual) train ride tickets from the ticket counter, your voucher to ride, is kept by the depot ticket manager for you to use when you arrive to ride the train, hopefully often.
  • Checks made-out to: Toy Train Depot – Receipt will be mailed to return address.
  • Credit card, by phone or in person at the ticket counter.
  • Cash in our donation wooden locomotive, near the ticket counter.