All aboard for Depot Day, Travel Town Museum's free train celebration

Take a spin on the rails around town — think a quick trip to Santa Monica or Pasadena — and you just might spy a family or two spending some time at a local Metro station, all to give a train-loving tot the chance to experience the on-the-go action.

Trains and kids are a powerful and charming combination, but adults love trains, too, and finding a free festival honoring locomotives, railcars, and everything that makes these magnificent modes of transportation move so elegantly can be as simple as keeping an eye on Travel Town Museum.

The history-filled Griffith Park destination is, after all, a major must-visit for train lovers, thanks to the stately engines and cars that fill the expansive property.

But Depot Day, which is chugging into Travel Town on Oct. 15, is something rail-y special: It's a free celebration, one featuring model train displays, intriguing demos, and opportunities to step inside some vintage cars.

It's circling back around for a multi-hour happening, one that begins at 10:30 in the morning.

On the schedule? Chances to see restoration work as it happens — so cool — as well as small trains, the kind of detailed models that consistently stoke the imaginations of so many enthusiasts.

A look inside the Hunter's Point and Rose Bowl sleeping cars is also on the itinerary.

Live tunes — the high school bands from Hoover and Crescenta Valley will be on the grounds — and food trucks will add to the autumnal, outdoorsy, come-one-come-all air of the affair.

Watching Metro trains zip around town, and the super-big Amtrak and Metrolink engines, too? That can be such a thrill for a youngster obsessed with all things train.

Add Depot Day at Travel Town to that mix and you've got both modern modes of train technology and the retro locomotives of yore well-covered.