Vast model railroad to move to new station
Public may get to see miniature worlds created by RPI students
It’s Sept. 25, 1950 and a New England, Berkshire & Western passenger train has just pulled into Troy Union Station. It stretches out over both Broadway and Fulton, temporarily blocking traffic while passengers board for a trip east through the Hoosac Tunnel en route to Boston.
The W. & L.E. Gurley precision instrument factories are next to the brick and granite station on Fulton, while on Broadway, the offices of The Record newspapers are a half block away.
Troy in 1950 is a bustling place, and the 4,000-square-foot layout of the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society strives to faithfully capture that moment in
time.
Until now, not many people could see the decades of effort that have gone into creating the fictional railroad in its historic setting. Housed in the cramped basement of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Davison Hall dormitory since 1972, the layout could be hard to find.
“There have been students who spent four years in Davison Hall and never knew we were downstairs,” club director John Nehrich told the Times Union’s Paul Grondahl in a 1990 interview.
The basement was a step up from the club’s three previous campus homes, two of which were subsequently demolished. And now even the basement space was filled.
“It’s wall-locked,” said Claude Rounds, Rensselaer’s vice president, administration. “It winds between three different rooms.”
But that’s all about to change. “We’ll be giving them as much as 50 percent more space,” Rounds said.
This fall, the club will open in its newest location, a nearly new office building at 258 Hoosick St., where Rensselaer rents a considerable amount for storage.
Rounds envisions not only space for visitors, but even some “then-andnow” photos of historic views and how they’ve changed.
Rensselaer, the nation’s oldest engineering school, has produced graduates who made major contributions to the railroad industry. Among them were Theodore Judah, a civil engineering graduate who designed the transcontinental railroad, and Alexander Cassatt, the Pennsylvania Railroad president who oversaw the construction not only of the Hudson River and East River railroad tunnels, but also of Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station, where those tunnels terminated.
Railroad author and photographer Jim Shaughnessy, also a Rensselaer civil engineering graduate, published lavishly illustrated histories of the Delaware & Hudson Railway and The Rutland Road, both of which served Troy. Shaughnessy died in August.
“Jim Shaughnessy’s research and writing and expertise very much contributed to the knowledge and the work of the club over the years,” Rounds said Thursday.
The railroad layout extends to the Hudson Valley, Lake Champlain and Adirondack and Berkshires communities, as well as towns closer to Troy. Club members relied on historic photos as they created realistic models of buildings throughout the region.
The move is being undertaken to permit asbestos remediation at the half-century-old Davison Hall and to replace aging pipes.
“The first thing we need to do is to be very careful about how we document, remove it and store it,” Rounds said. “There was no way we could protect the exhibit with the work we needed to do in Davison Hall.”
The new location for the railroad layout will be more accessible, with parking available. They hope to open it to the public on a regular basis.
“This move is uncovering a hidden gem and elevating it to a position of prominence in the community,” said Dalton Slegel, the president of the Model Railroad Society, in a statement. “We are honoring the historical connections between Rensselaer alumni and railroading heritage, as well as the immense contributions of club members over many decades.”