Everyone’s favorite blue train engine, Thomas the Tank Engine, has rolled into Kansas City this summer for a fun and exciting learning adventure.
Visitors to the Thomas & Friends™: Explore the Rails! exhibit – now open at Crown Center – can explore the sights and sounds of the Island of Sodor and meet Thomas’ engine friends.
Featuring favorite trains and destinations from the popular Thomas & Friends™ television series, this STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)–focused exhibit seeks to engage children and families in foundational skills that foster STEM literacy through playful learning experiences.
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Children can help solve a variety of challenges, from simple sorting and shape identification to more complex tasks, such as completing a train track using track pieces with different levels of elevation. As children test their abilities and use their imaginations, the smiling faces of Thomas, Percy, Victor, and others will remind children how “really useful” they are!
Activities inside the Thomas & Friends™: Explore the Rails! exhibit include:
- Climb into Thomas’ cab and explore the engine’s inner workings. Flip levers and investigate other movable parts that trigger train noises such as braking, whistles, and steam.
- Fix Percy’s wobbly wheel by removing and replacing parts and experimenting to find a combination of wheels, rods, and bolts that work.
- Work with old and new friends loading luggage, livestock, and other freight into the coaches of two train cars.
- Collaborate with others to get Percy moving by loading coal into his coal box and filling his tank with water from a water tower.
- Suit up as the conductor to exchange money and sell tickets to other visitors taking a ride on the train.
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Thomas & Friends™: Explore the Rails! will be most entertaining for children ages 2 to 7, but all ages are welcome. Most families spend 30 minutes to 1 hour in the exhibit, but visitors can stay and play as long as they’d like.
Open through Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 1), visitors can experience the world of Thomas and Friends: Explore the Rails! all summer long in the Crown Center Showplace on Level 1 of the Crown Center Shops. Admission is FREE.
Exhibit hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. (Holiday hours for Fourth of July and Labor Day are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Find more details at CrownCenter.com or call 816-274-8444.
Thomas & Friends™: Explore the Rails! was created by Minnesota Children’s Museum and sponsored by 3M.
©2025 Gullane (Thomas) Limited.