Railroad club opens display to public All aboard!

SHAMOKIN - The Lower Anthracite Model Railroad Club will open its doors to the public for its 24th annual open house this December beginning Friday evening.

The display can be seen from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Dec. 11 and Dec. 18, and from 3 to 9 p.m. Dec. 12, Dec. 19 and Dec. 26.

In past years, more than 3,000 visitors annually have come to see the layout, with many returning each year to check on the progress and new features.

The club is located at 210 E. Independence St., in the Shamokin Community Center, on the second floor above the Shamokin-Coal Township Public Library. Admission is free, but donations will be appreciated by the volunteers comprising the club's membership.

The club's HO Scale layout replicates in miniature what the cities of Sunbury and Shamokin and portions of Northumberland and Mount Carmel looked like in the 1950s. The Pennsylvania and the Reading railroads both run past a model of the old Northumberland Station (now the Front Street Station restaurant), through the city of Sunbury where models of the Northumberland County Courthouse, Strand Theater, Hotel Edison and Zion Lutheran Church can be seen.

Proceeding further east, Auman's Restaurant (now Masser's) is modeled at the junction of Routes 61 and 487. Next is Weigh Scales, where Clark's Feeds and the Glen Burn Colliery are located. Round the bend on the other side of the world's largest culm bank, the city of Shamokin appears.

In the 1950s, there were three movie theaters and each are represented in the display. Stores like Bader's and Jones Hardware are modeled as are the Pennsylvania RR and Reading RR Depots - the latter of which is now the site of the Shamokin Post Office. The rear of 210 E. Independence St. can be seen with an American flag on the roof - appropriate because in the 1950's, the building was the American Legion hall.

Exiting Shamokin to the east, the trains go past the old Eagle Silk Mill complete with its clock/bell tower. The trains then meander through Excelsior where the Pennsy splits from the Reading, which goes toward Locust Gap. Meanwhile, the Pennsy enters Mount Carmel complete with its Avenue of Churches. There, the Pennsy passes under the old Viaduct and Mount Carmel depot. The Pennsy then interchanges with the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which is depicted as a freelanced area of the display. This area features a fictitious logging railroad.

Visitors will be able to hear the sounds of locomotives complete with bells, whistles, horns, brake releases as well as the sound of the engines working, whether it be "choo-choos" of steam or the roar of diesels. The club's featured "Ore Train" with two large Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) steam engines at the head end of fifty-odd ore cars, a caboose and then another Decapod should make quite a racket on its simulated journey on the Northumberland-Mount Carmel segment of its trek from Erie to Bethlehem for Bethlehem Steel. Housewives who lived in Shamokin during the 1950s have told club members how they had to rush up to their roofs to take down their laundry hung out to dry when they heard the Decapods coming because of the soot, cinders and ash.

In addition to the large HO-Scale display, the club also operates N-scale and O-gauge trains plus a smaller HO-scale layout and a HO-Scale modular display. Visitors can view a collection of railroad memorabilia as they walk through the exhibit. The club offers various items for sale including club T-shirts, hats, patches and a raffle featuring numerous prizes.

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