The home road of the RMRRC is the Seneca Valley Lines, a fictional railroad loosely based on the route and operations of the old Lehigh Valley Railroad from Jersey City to Buffalo. The layout is quite large and features many scenes faithfully modeled after the real thing, such as the station at Geneva, the scene at Rochester Jct., and the old Lackawanna terminal in Buffalo. Many of these scenes are long gone in real life, but they live in on model form. We also visited the small train show where we picked up many items at bargain prices for our personal and club collections!
After our visit, we walked a couple of blocks over to Dinosaur BBQ, housed on the old Lehigh Valley passenger terminal that dates from 1905. Trains no longer call at the station (the last service was in the 1950s), but it has been home to tasty barbecue since 1995. Alongside the restaurant are some ruins of the old Rochester Subway and its Court Street station. We made time for a history lesson and took a quick look around before heading back to RIT.
The remains of Court Street station on the Rochester Subway. Structure at left carried a roadway into the Lehigh Valley freight yard. Dinosaur BBQ is just out of view at left. The Rundel Library in the background was built over the Subway tracks in 1934. Photo source: RochesterSubway.com
Upon our arrival, we quickly split up into teams to tackle various clean-up jobs. One team swept the entire layout and removed all equipment. Everything was brought out to our temporary work station in the hallway for inspection (weight, wheels, and couplers). Another team removed everything from under the layout, swept and vacuumed, and carefully replaced anything going back into storage. A third group vacuumed the surface of the layout and also polished all tracks with a Brite Boy abrasive block. Some temporary fascia panels were hung to help protect clothing from being snagged on exposed benchwork. Floors were swept, empty boxes thrown away, and the general appearance of the room was improved dramatically.
The first RITMRC Golden Spike Ceremony was held on April 1, 1997. From left to right, Rob "Fro" Ranger (Secretary), Joe Wolff (Treasurer), Otto Vondrak (Vice President), Tom Rohatsch (President), Prof. Jim Scudder (Advisor). Photo by Scott Spitzer
We're getting ready to host a special Open House to celebrate the driving of the "Golden Spike" with RIT president William Destler on Tuesday, March 11, at 1:30 p.m. Come down and join us for this historic event!
