Delmarva Model Railroad Club

Our club is made up of many dedicated model railroaders. One of them even painted and decorated his car to resemble a PRR GG1 locomotive as seen below. (Our club's history is written below this photo.)

In August of 1984, 13 men, 3 of whom are still members*, met in the back of Bill Shehan`s hobby shop to discuss the formation of a model railroad on the lower Eastern Shore. It was decided that there was enough interest, and a committee was appointed, and a meeting was scheduled in two weeks. At that meeting a temporary set of by-laws were approved, and a slate of officers were elected. They were: President- Bill Shehan, Vice-President- Bob Scott, Secretary- Don Bowen ,Treasurer-Leo Stevens.

When Bill Shehan`s hobby shop failed, we were left without a meeting place. At this time we started meeting in various member`s homes. At the December meeting, Lee Marvin reported that the second floor of Camelot Hall was available. As the front part of the building was being used for training migrant workers, our first project had to be the construction of the great wall to separate the 2 areas. The materials for this project were donated by Paul Jones, who owned a lumber company in Snow Hill, Md. By mid-summer of 1985, our wall was complete and we were recruiting new members.

In the meantime some of the members had started to built a modular HO-Scale layout. By September of 1986, we had enough modules to take them to Snow Hill, Md. for their River Festival. We set them up in up automobile dealers`s show room and attracted a large crowd, from which we recruited some new members. We were now an active model railroad club. This layout has been displayed at the Annual Doll,Miniature, Toy and Train Show put on by the Salisbury Soroptimist Club at the Wicomico County Youth and Civic Center in Salisbury,Md. ,and the Toy and Train Show in the Seaford Fire House in Seaford, De. More recently it has been displayed at the Ocean City Airport Transportation Fair, the Annual Amtrak Open House in Wilmington, De and the Ellicott City Scale Train Show at the Timonium State Fair Grounds. In 2002, those members left us.

In 1985, a committee was appointed to design a large HO-Scale layout, and construction was started. Although it had very little scenery, in December of 1985, we had our first open house. The layout has now evolved into a L-shape with 2 proposed additions which will make it E-shaped. However, it has been decided that no additional areas will be started until scenery has been competed on the existing portions. Some spectacular scenery has been constructed on this layout. In 1997, a digital control system was installed. We have had operating sessions the Friday after the last Wednesday of the month on this layout.

There has always been some members of the Club who were interested in O-Scale. In 1995, a small Lionel Super O-Gauge layout was replaced by a much larger one using Gargraves track. The layout has grown, and now has a large, well sceniced mountain with a log train running around it. There are 3 main lines with an area for industrial switching. It is powered by 2 Mike`s Train House Z4000 transformers and a couple of smaller Lionel transformers. Most of the trains running on the layout are O-Scale 3-rail with some O-27 on it too.

In 1985, we were informed of a defunct N-Scale club that had a layout in Salisbury, Md. We retrieved the layout, and eventually some of the members of that club joined us and restored it. It has grown into a large layout with very interesting scenery.This layout is equipped with a digital control system. There is also a N-Track Modular Layout.

In the very back of the layout room there was a makeshift stage that some of the members turned into a Standard Gauge layout. As these trains aged and grew in value, people became reluctant to operate them. and the layout was converted to LGB G-Scale. Because there were only two members working on it, it was converted to O-Gauge Tinplate with some antique pre-war and post-war trains operating on 3 loops of track. There is also a loop of S-Scale track and the original loop of Standard Gauge track.The layout is powered by a post-war Lionel ZW transformer and a Lionel KW transformer.

The club had 2 portable G-Scale layouts, which were available to see from around Thanksgiving to New Years Day. One which was displayed in the Dunes Manor Hotel in Ocean City, Md for 10 years. The other used to be displayed at the Ocean City Convention Center and also at Sheraton Founainbleau Hotel in Ocean City,Md.

Every year, the attendance at our open house has increased. The club is very dependent on donations and annual raffles for operating funds. We also got funds from the rental of the two G-Scale portable layouts and when our HO-Scale modular layout was used at different train shows.