TrainTastic — Mississippi Coast Model Railroad Museum

Six lanes of Pass Road, and then a model railroad museum claiming to be the largest in the world. The claim may be ambitious. The nearly two million LEGO pieces — a regional record for largest LEGO railroad display — are not. TrainTastic holds hand-crafted model trains in all gauges, built by local artisans. The miniature cities run mountains, countryside, and Mississippi coastline — the coast that Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville reached in 1699, that hurricanes reshaped in 1969 and 2005, that casinos and condos rebuilt into the second-largest gaming area in the country. All of it rendered small and set in motion. Interactive exhibits let visitors push buttons to blow horns and move sailboats. There's a real 1950s-era train car you can climb into and ride. The Gulf Coast's position along the Mississippi Sound maintained its ties to the rest of the world more easily than other regions of the state, according to Mississippi's deputy historic preservation officer. That outward orientation shows in the museum's scope — not just local landmarks but the infrastructure that connected them: bridges, harbors, the working systems of a coast that kept rebuilding. The STEAM programs run summer camps, homeschool curricula, and birthday parties. It's the kind of place a family finds on a rainy afternoon and stays.