About Us:

In March of 1957, an ad was placed in the issue of Model Railroad Craftsman magazine inviting anyone interested in forming a model railroad club in the Youngstown area to contact Robert Folsom at a Struthers phone number. On Sunday, April 1st, 1957, eight strangers with a common interest in “HO” model railroading met at the home of George Sankey of Tippecanoe Road in Youngstown. This meeting initiated the forming of the Youngstown Model Railroad Association. Of these original eight members only two are still members today, the other six have either moved or passed away.

During our first year, while searching for a location to construct a layout, the members built a 5’ x 10’ portable layout for the Railroad Community Committee of the Mahoning and Shenango Valley. They manned it for them at the Canfield Fair and an industrial show at Idora Park. This committee was comprised of representatives of the local railroads at that time. These included the Pennsylvania, New York Central, B&O, Erie, and the Youngstown and Southern railroads. Contacts through the committee finally resulted in the club obtaining layout space in the New York Central passenger station on Wilson Avenue in December of 1957. Shortly thereafter the club’s first layout was built. The club’s first Open House was held December 2 and 3 of 1961.

In June of 1964, as the Mahoning valley’s economic decline escalated we were forced to leave our first home. For the next two and a half years we held meetings at members’ homes until obtaining the old gymnasium on the fourth floor of the Eagles building at the corner of 5th Avenue and Rayen in Youngstown. January of 1967 found us eagerly contemplating a king size layout in the gym as compared to the cramped quarters in the old NYC station. The group lost no time planning and building a large layout that filled most of the gym. Unfortunately economic hard times forced us to leave this location because the Eagles organization had to sell the building and move to smaller quarters. So in August of l977 the Youngstown Model Railroad Association was again searching for a new home.