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    • Home Family Activities Articles
    Incredible New Oddity at Ripley's!

    Incredible New Oddity at Ripley's!

    By Christina Vercelletto

    It's a curious kid's fantasy land, Ripley's Believe it or Not! Times Square Odditorium. And you'll never guess what they trotted out now.

    Ripley's Believe it or Not! Times Square Odditorium is unveiling a train. What's so weird and wonderful about that, you ask?

    Well, it's 22 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 9 feet high.

    And made of out of matchsticks. Over 1 million of them, each placed by hand, one at a time, by "matchstick artist" Pat Acton. True to his painstaking work habits, he hand-delivered the train from his studio in Iowa and installed it himself. This is his biggest work to date, taking him about 3,000 hours over 14 months to finish.



    The exhibit officially opens at 2 pm on July 29; the first 200 general-admission ticket holders will receive a special giveaway and the chance to meet and greet Mr. Acton.

    And as if this display could get any more unique, the "steampunk" style classic locomotive has aspects of a plane, like wings. What more could a kid ask for, being able to climb onto it? They can! Wee visitors can enter the child-sized engineer cab, with a fully operable throttle, brake, and forward levers.

    All aboard!



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    Christina Vercelletto

    Author:

     Christina Vercelletto is a former editor at NYMetroParents, Parenting, Scholastic Parent & Child, and Woman’s Day. She lives on Long Island with her kids, a chiweenie, Pickles, and a 20-pound calico, Chub-Chub.

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