Valley Model Railroad Club on the Road to National Recognition | News, Sports, Work

Youngstown Model Railroad Association employee Bruce Silvernail performs switching operations at one of the large stations on the HO model. The YMRA HO model will appear in the national magazine Model Railroader on eight pages.

AUSTINTOWN — The Youngstown Model Railroad Association plans to publish its HO scale model in Model Railroader magazine in January.

This feature will showcase years of hard work to create the largest model train club in the Mahoning Valley.

According to club officer Bruce Silvernail, the YMRA began on April 1, 1957, when eight strangers who were interested in HO model railroads met at the home of George Sankeyon on Tippecanoe Road in Youngstown. The HO is the most popular model train in the US and Canada.

During this meeting, new members built a portable 5′ by 10′ model for the Mahoning and Shenango Valley Railroad Community Committee. This initial layout appeared in Idora Park and the Canfield Fairgrounds.

“In December 1957, we moved to New York Central in Youngstown,” Silvernail said. “We have a model copy of this building on our HO layout that shows our first layout in the mess hall of this station.”

The first open day of the club was held on December 2, 1961. After three years, the club was forced to leave its first home and moved to the Eagles Building at the corner of Fifth and Ryan Avenues in Youngstown. In August 1977, hard times forced the Eagles to close this building and the club once again looked for a permanent home.

Silvernail continued with a history that included member Butch Phillips helping the club purchase the current site of the former Four Mile Run Christian Church. The church built a new building nearby and wanted to preserve the historic church. The club moved and took care of the structure, building two permanent layouts. The first HO was in 1978 and in 1980 a group of O-calibrators was added to the list and a mock-up of O-calibrators was built upstairs in the former sanctuary.

“We’re 67 years old now,” Silvernail said.

Today, the upper floor of the church houses a large O-shaped layout. It was featured in O Gauge Railroading Magazine Spring 2009.

In the room, which is an addition to a vintage old church, the new modular layout combines to give the club a portable layout for advertising displays.

The HO layout has undergone a lot of custom and kit work, bringing the Youngstown railroads to life. One of the features is the metallurgical complex. Everything from coke ovens to final steel coils is represented here.

“We even have the 14 stop on Walton Street (Youngstown), which was the entrance to the Sheet and Tube,” Silvernail said.

Perhaps the most notable segment of the layout is downtown Youngstown. It resembles the city as it was in the 1950s and early 60s. Every aspect and building that made up the central part of the city was built from scratch and added to. Even the Realty Building, which was destroyed in an explosion last spring, is on the layout. It was a real work of art and gaining popularity.

“Someone from Model Railroader magazine called and wanted to feature our HO layout shortly before COVID-19,” Silvernail said. “When everything started to open up again, the magazine contacted us and arranged a visit in 2022. The team was here for two days and we had to include what we wanted in the article,” Silvernail said.

He said member Don Lakein helped by climbing up on the layout and measuring everything so a map-style diagram could be created for the feature. This was photographed and details obtained so that the object could be pieced together

Silvernail said the feature was recently reported to appear in the January 2025 issue of Model Railroader. In fact, this issue will be released in December.

This feature will cover all the details of the layout, such as a drive-in cinema that shows real movies. A theater screen is actually a miniature television that resembles a regular drive-in.

At the northern end of the layout, the participants built an amusement park. It included a working roller coaster, and visitors began to call it Idora Park. It included a trolley stop from which the real Idora Park (as a trolley park) began.

All these details will be part of the eight-page magazine. For those interested in getting a quick look at the layout, the club is holding open houses Nov. 2-3, 9-10, Dec. 7-8 and Dec. 14-15 at 751 N. Four Mile Run Road in Austintown. . The open house will run from noon to 6 p.m. all eight days, and the club is asking for a $5 donation per person. Attendees will be able to see the latest addition, which will not be in the magazine article.

Wanting to give Idora a better look, members Kurt Sanders, Don Lakein and Ed Williams decided to work together to develop the iconic Idora Park Rocket Ride.

“It was all created from scratch. No kits,” Sanders said. “Every week for two years we got together at someone’s house and worked on the model.”

As part of the process, the three men visited the Idora Experience in Canfield to take measurements of a real rocket in the museum’s collection. Using these measurements, the rockets were handcrafted and lit to look like the real thing. At the base of the attraction, there are also original stands with food from the real park.

“We’re like any other model train layout,” Silvernail said. “The layout never ends; it’s always a work in progress.”