Planning & Inspiration of the Model Railroad Club

The Model Railroad Club’s main railroad is the Hudson Delaware and Ohio, which runs from Hoboken, New Jersey to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rich Cornell, Club President says that they chose this area because they are an eastern club, so they decided to model an eastern area of the United States. They also wanted to include different railroads in the area.

The railroad’s constitution says they have to operate in a prototypical manner. Their goal is to operate as prototypically as possible using the state of the art of the time. To do that, railroads interchange traffic with other railroads and they have four separate railroads, each interchanging with the main line class one railroad – the Hudson Delaware and Ohio.

The second largest railroad of the club is the Trenton Northern, which is designed as an urban light rail. This railroad picks up cars from the HD&O and delivers them to a power plant, a cement mill and some other areas. They also have the Rahway River railroad, which symbolizes a short-line railroad.

This railroad would operate primarily as a non-signaled interchange with some local companies. Each of these railroads have different interchange points with the HD&O. A major point for the Trenton Northern is Jim Thorpe, where they interchange coal with the HD&O and other commodities, bringing them to the power plant, cement plant and others.

They also have a minor interchange in Summit. Since it’s a New Jersey railroad, they have heavily modeled after the Delaware Lackawanna and Western. The club designed the layout first and then built the building. This is different from what most modelers are able to do. Rich goes on to describe the advantages and disadvantages of this.