Pahrump Model Railroad Club displays a miniature world

Model trains have a way of captivating both the young and the young at heart and for the Pahrump Model Railroad Club, the passion runs deep.

To share their love of the hobby and hopefully inspire others to delve into it, this group of miniature locomotive enthusiasts recently rolled into the Pahrump Valley Museum with an immersive two-day exhibit.

Hosted Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27, the Pahrump Model Railroad Club Show featured a display of interconnected modules, each with their own highly detailed designs. The intricate display gave visitors of all ages an up-close look at the art, engineering and sheer joy of model railroading.

Throughout the event, the exhibit was humming with active trains in the HO scale, the rhythmic clicking of the tracks and even the rumble of a thunderstorm from a module incorporating flashes of lightning. Showcasing meticulous craftsmanship and digital command technology, the display included everything from metropolitan settings, rolling hills, tunnels and lakes to tiny signal lights, buildings, vehicles and people, all set out in such a way that each portion told its own story.

“If you look here, this guy is getting ready to open the doors to his mine shaft and over here, he’s got his donkey ready to ready pull the cart in,” model railroad club member Mark Johnson explained of his lightning and thunder module. “He’s got his rail here, some timber for the mine, a stack of wood for his wood stove, an outhouse. And then here, these dudes lost their ore cart and they’re trying to pull it back up. And the lightning and thunder runs on a two-minute cycle – it starts with the flashes, then there is a pause for the thunder and at the end of the two minutes, the lightning and the thunder are hitting together, so the storm is moving toward you.”

Another module incorporated a car breakdown, with a police vehicle blocking the road while the car is pulled onto a tow truck, while yet another depicts mini people crossing a pedestrian overpass above two trains. There are passengers riding inside of to-scale train cars, buses and other vehicles, or else hanging around the buildings, performing everyday tasks, and all sorts of animals throughout. It was an entire world, carefully created by members who take great pride in the task.

“Each one of them has their own thing going on,” Pahrump Model Railroad Club Coordinator Ray Squyres told the Pahrump Valley Times. “All of these are built so that we can mix and match the modules. The tracks are all set back one inch and we use bridging tracks to put them together, except for over at the lift bridge, which lets us get into the center there where the controls are. So, any way we want to shuffle it, we can.”

It wasn’t just the work of the club members on display, either. The club also sponsors the Educational Module Railroad Club, which is geared toward inspiring the next generation of model railroad enthusiasts, and the youth display was full of color and creativity.

“Leo Vath is the one who came to me to propose bringing up the Educational Module program for the kids with the group and he is the liaison, the head, of that program,” Squyres said. “We give them each one of these boards – they are smaller than ours, but they are all the same size and just like our modules, they have the same setback for the tracks, so the modules can be rearranged. Each child does their own thing but they have to learn how to assemble and work the snap circuit system. It’s about using their imaginations, instead of being on their phones or computers all day and the program has been doing really good.”

“It’s fun, I like it,” EMRRC program member Lucy Farmer told the Times. “I like building the snaps.”

“And it gets pretty in-depth, once they get past the beginning stage,” Lucy’s mother Heather added. “Leo’s going to teach them a lot.”

Anyone who may have missed out on this June’s Pahrump Model Railroad Club Show need not worry, as the group hosts these shows on a quarterly basis and will be returning later this year. Look for an announcement of future show dates in an upcoming edition of the Times.

For more information on the Pahrump Model Railroad Club, contact Squyres at 775-843-1804 and leave a message.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com