Train Club Still Rolling After 75 Years

McKeesport club survives, thrives in digital age

By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
November 28, 2025
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News

Editor’s Note: The author of this story had a conflict of interest. See editor’s note at the end.

Members of McKeesport Model Railroad Club touch up a section of the club’s layout. (Submitted photo courtesy McKeesport Model Railroad Club)

When McKeesport Model Railroad Club opens its doors on Saturday, it will mark the 75th year in a row — minus a few interruptions — that the public has been invited to view its miniature train empire representing Western Pennsylvania.

It also is likely to mark the 75th year in a row that someone asks, “How long does it take to put this up and take it down?”

“That is a question we get every year from at least a few attendees,” said George Sharp Jr. of Irwin, the club’s president. “It’s something we smile at because you can’t really fathom how long it would take to do all of that.”

The answer is “they don’t.” The club’s 2,200-square-foot train display in HO scale (representing objects at about 1/87th of actual size) is a permanent fixture inside the non-profit organization’s building on Walnut Street in Christy Park, across from CP Industries’ Christy Park Works.

Listen: Members of McKeesport Model Railroad Club discuss the hobby this week on “Two Rivers, 30 Minutes”

That doesn’t mean the display, set in a nebulous period between the late 1950s and mid-1960s, is ever really complete, said Steve Raith of East McKeesport, vice president. Members are continuously updating and improving scenes that tell the story of a fictional rail company — the Mon-Yough Valley Railroad — running through parts of Allegheny, Westmoreland and Fayette counties.

“Even with being here all the time, sometimes I will see some work that just stops me in my tracks,” Raith says. “Maybe someone has just created a little scene that grabs you and pulls you in, and maybe even jogs some memories.”

Raith says older visitors will sometimes spot a landmark named after a real business of days gone by in the McKeesport area — Hirshberg’s Furniture or Balsamo’s Market — and tell their children or grandchildren, “I used to shop there.”

The club has its origins in a group of young hobbyists who returned from service in World War II and began meeting in Oddo’s Hobby Shop in Downtown McKeesport. In 1950 they formally chartered themselves as a club and began work on their first full-size model railroad layout, on the second floor of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s freight station along Lysle Boulevard.

That layout, which was nationally featured in Model Railroader magazine, the bible of the hobby, lasted until 1964, when U.S. Steel purchased the property to expand a railroad yard used by the National Plant and the station was torn down.

The club moved to other communities, including South Versailles Twp. and Dravosburg, before returning to the city in 1987 when it purchased a former Steelworkers’ union hall.

A large model of a steel mill, modeled after U.S. Steel’s National Plant in McKeesport and Carrie Furnace in Rankin, takes up much of the center of the club’s building. (Submitted photo courtesy McKeesport Model Railroad Club)

Both the hobby and the club have had their ups and downs over the years, Sharp says.

Although the club is a charitable organization, it does pay property taxes and is also responsible for utilities and all other expenses. All of its annual income is provided by membership dues, donations and fundraisers such as the annual holiday open house.

Sharp says 10 years ago, when he joined the organization, it was down to a handful of members who were worried that it might no longer be sustainable. 

A vigorous recruiting effort, a campaign to rebuild the entire train layout, and outreach to the community helped rebuild the membership rolls. This year, for the first time since 1965, the club was again spotlighted in Model Railroader magazine — this time, on the cover of the February issue.

The McKeesport club was featured this year on the cover of Model Railroader magazine, considered the bible of the hobby. (Submitted photos courtesy Kalmbach Publishing Inc.)

“Ten or 11 years ago, there was a consideration of ‘Hey, we can’t continue,’ and we’ve gone from that to being in the magazine again, and I chalk that all up to our members and getting the right folks in place,” Sharp says.

Although model railroads might seem somewhat quaint in a digital age, both Sharp and Raith point out that the McKeesport club’s layout is heavily computerized — software controls a fully functional signal system that works just like the signals on a real railroad — and that new technology has brought many younger people into the hobby.

And the hobby — once seen as the domain of older men — is attracting women as well. So is the McKeesport club, they said.

“What has begun to happen is that the modeling world has met the computer programming world, and now with digital technology you can bring so many sights and sounds to life,” Sharp says. “It’s really brought the youth back in.”

To encourage younger visitors, scouts in uniform are admitted to the club’s events for free, as are active duty military personnel with ID, veterans with ID, and first-responders.

Besides the fact that the McKeesport club’s display isn’t put away every winter, one thing that surprises first-time visitors is that it’s elevated several feet off the ground. That’s for the convenience of club members operating and maintaining the layout, Raith says.

For visitors who are in wheelchairs, have disabilities or other special needs, Sharp and Raith say, the club can make arrangements to open outside of the holidays. It’s also hosted car clubs, scout troops and other groups.

Members of McKeesport Model Railroad Club pose with a full-size railroad car on the Western Maryland Scenic Railway in Cumberland, Md., that has been lettered for the club’s fictional “Mon-Yough Valley Railroad.” It is believed to be the only fictional model railroad road name depicted on a real, in-service car. (Submitted photo courtesy McKeesport Model Railroad Club)

But there is one piece of the McKeesport Model Railroad Club that no visitors will get to see in McKeesport, no matter how nicely they ask. Instead, they’ll have to drive about two hours southeast of McKeesport to Cumberland, Md., where this summer the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad converted a full-size, in-service, coal car into a replica of a Mon-Yough Valley Railroad car.

Raith, who works in graphic design for a living, is also a volunteer on the Maryland tourist railroad. “We were joking one day that we should paint one of the cars for the Mon-Yough Valley Railroad,” he says. “Well, the director down there let us do it. So now there is a real Mon-Yough Valley Railroad car down there — probably the only time that we know of that someone took a fictitious model and made it real.”

Conflict of Interest Note: The editor of Tube City Almanac, Jason Togyer, is a longtime member of McKeesport Model Railroad Club. This article was not subject to approval by the club or its officers and was not shown to them before publication.

Originally published November 28, 2025.

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