All aboard! Model trains chugging into the museum

With a longstanding relationship between the Pahrump Valley Museum and the Pahrump Model Railroad Club, the club has officially moved its quarterly displays to the museum and the second of 2026 is just days away.

“We will be hosting the Pahrump Model Railroad Club this Friday and Saturday,” Pahrump Valley Museum Director Marilyn Davis told the Pahrump Valley Times this week. “It’ll be our second time and it should be a really great time. People come into our train room, see it and say, ‘Oh, this is so cool.’ Well, come out and see these guys running their own stuff! It’s free to enter the museum, it’s free see the trains, we just want people to come and check it out.”

It was the model train room inside the museum that initially sparked the relationship between the museum and the club in the first place. In 2015, the museum board approached the club to ask for their assistance with creating a Nye County-oriented railroad display, which featured the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad and particularly, its service to the then-booming Rhyolite area. Throughout the years, the club has periodically spent time at that exhibit, such as to provide in-depth details of the train room for student tours.

“We’ve been participating there for quite a while and we love the venue,” club coordinator Ray Squyres remarked, adding that it seemed a natural fit for the club’s new location.

The club has been hosting displays for many years in Pahrump and had previously held regular events at the Pahrump Community Library. However, the club is shifting directions this year with its new museum location, although it still continues to partner with the library on the children’s program.

Pahrump Model Railroad Club Coordinator Ray Squyres, who happens to also be the president of the museum board of directors, said the club is excited for its second appearance at the museum and hopes plenty of residents and visitors will turn out to enjoy it.

The display will be held in the meeting area adjacent to the Yucca Mountain display, where there is enough room for an array of modules to be set up. “It will be 16 feet wide by 24 feet long,” Squyres detailed. “And each of those modules is at least two feet deep by four feet long.”

But they won’t just be on display – these tiny replicas of rolling hills, trees, bridges and tracks will be humming with activity of running trains.

“Everything we do is in HO scale and it’s digital command and control, or DCC, which allows us to run multiple trains simultaneously. We’ve got sounds, too, which helps entertain the youngsters, ages 6 to 90!” Squyres enthused.

Squyres developed his love of the model railroad hobby through family, starting when he was raising his children while living in Alaska. Once the children became teens, the models went into boxes and pretty much stayed there until after Squyres and his wife moved to Pahrump.

“We moved here around 2011, 2012 and we went up to Beatty Days – that’s where I met the club and I joined. My wife came up with this idea – when her dad was in the service, she had spent the first through the sixth grade in Alaska and they would watch the trains. So, she said, ‘We’re going to build modules and we’re going to be Alaska.’”

Squyres’ wife has since passed but his enjoyment of the hobby remains and he is an avid enthusiast who loves to share the passion with others, most specifically, youngsters. “They are the future and if we can get them off the constant gaming or being on their cell phones, and get them to thinking and enjoying doing something creative, that’s the hope,” he said, concluding, “Building the modules and setting everything up is secondary. The most fun is running the trains, watching the people and having fun with it.”

The Pahrump Model Railroad Club Exhibit will be on display from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, June 26 and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 27 at the Pahrump Valley Museum, 401 E. Basin Avenue.

For more information on the Pahrump Model Railroad Club, contact Squyres at 775-843-1804 and leave a message. Membership kits will also be available at the event.

More on the museum can be found at PahrumpMuseum.org or by calling 775-751-1970.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com