Celebrating Rensselaer Model Railroad Society's Anniversary
John NehrichDescription
The Rensselaer Model Railroad Society prepared to celebrate their 50th anniversary back when Allen Keller visited in 1997. Twenty more years have passed since then and the club is still thriving. To this day, the club persists to operate from the Davidson Hall basement located on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The Rensselaer Model Railroad Society continues to recruit new members and extends an invitation for tours to visitors on campus and outside of the area.
Celebrating 50 Years as the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society
In part seven of the 10-part New England Berkshire & Western series, Allen Keller sits down with John Nehrich to discuss the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society’s anniversary. The dynamic of the club is constantly changing due to the type of members involved. Many members are students who eventually graduate and in result leave the club. John Nehrich is the longest active member. He has been working full time for the club since 1989 as the club coordinator. He brought together members from the past and present to celebrate the clubs 50th anniversary.
Later on in the discussion, John mentions a recognition received by the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society. They were honored with a grant from New York’s Parks, Recreation and Historic preservation state agency. The club used that money to fund the New England Berkshire & Western project. The NEB&W model railroad layout is known as a tourist attraction in Troy, New York. The club receives weekly visitors from all around.
Visitors largely impact the New England Berkshire & Western layout. Some visitors have lived in areas modeled on the layout and can recall stories from the 1950’s when they inhabited the towns. John recounts one particular story of a man who claims to have lived in a home modeled on the layout. He says that back in 1959 the home was painted white. The model of the home was painted yellow, so they quickly made changes based on his lived experience.
The 10-part New England Berkshire & Western series isn’t over yet. Three segments remain. The last three segments give attention to research and education, operating scheme, and structures and design.
1997 is the 50th anniversary of the club and the 25th anniversary of the club in these quarters, the current NEB&W. What kind of plans do you have for the celebration? Basically trying to get together all the old members and have them come back. The anniversary is actually over a full year because of the two different dates, one in June when we moved here, and November when the club started. So we're, we haven't really figured out exactly what we're doing in terms of that, other than using it as something to tie into getting things done on the layout and getting excitement about the layout. Well, will there be special articles in the hobby press? Yeah, and there have been already, the "Great Model Railroads" and "Mainline Modeler" series and "Model Railroader." 50 years is a long time for anything, particularly a club. How has the club managed to stay together through 50 years? I think that having a space in a facility is something that you can't start like a second club or something. Space is always a problem for model railroads, and have been blessed with the amount of space has kept the club here, and then focusing on the prototype so that we don't change as interests change. But you know, if we had someone who modeled New Haven, and we had a lot of New Haven features, and then he left and we started modeling Denver & Rio Grande or something. So this really keeps us focused on one thing. We got a one-time grant from New York Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation to work on the exhibitry, and we're tied into the tourist attractions, and so when they send out notices about what's going on, they're supposed to be including us. Oh, so 'cause you're duplicating Troy, is that... Right, right, and they recognize we get a lot of visitors from outside of the area, so they always like that. It's interesting getting people in here, you get a lot of questions from people, and some of the times they go from totally, you know, they have no idea what's going on, and on the other hand, you also get people come in and they say, "I lived in this house and this is what, you know, this is the color of the house," or "Here's a story about what happened, I remember the train going through, and it used to do this at this time of night" or whatever. And so it brings it to life. Well, how much of that can you actually say is true? People tell you things and their memories may be faulty. They may embellish it. Do you go and change something based on a story? We changed the color of the house, specifically, the guy said it was white. We had painted it yellow 'cause that's what it is now. We repainted it back to white, 'cause that was the best information we had. Whether or not it's true, it's the best, and if he changes his mind, we'll change the color.
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