... Is a place that is worth more than a passing visit for any railroad enthusiast that visits Medina. The museum has an extensive collection of railroad memorabilia and a fire fighting exhibit that includes an estimated 400 fire helmets. These are only two of the many exhibits on display. All of this is housed in one of the largest (301 ft. by 34 ft.) last surviving wooden freight depots in the United States. The depot was built in 1905 by the NYC Railroad. Adjacent to the depot on a siding is New York Central E-8 diesel locomotives NYC 4068 and NYC 4080 heralding a rich railroading heritage associated with this museum.
Other static displays found within include Lionel's 1928 "The States" train set in standard gauge, a collection of scratch-built, scale model ships, model warplanes, Bell aircraft and a showcase that contains over 200 scale model ships from World Wars I and II. Whatever one’s interests are in modeling, this museum certainly has it.
My favorite display was what I considered the main reason for visiting Medina’s railroad museum. It was the 204 foot long by 14 foot wide HO train layout. Museum director Martin Phelps and a group of dedicated volunteers have made what I considered one of the most realistic layouts I have seen. At times deciding what to look at first on this layout was overwhelming for a first time visitor like me. It definitely was easy to overlook something.
There were some scenes that rated as my favorites. One in particular was the iron ore ship Edmund Fitzgerald docked and being loaded. This was the ship that sank on November 10, 1975 in Lake Superior. Its final voyage was sung about by Gordon Lightfoot in his ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. Perhaps those iron ore railroad cars I saw on the dock were loading the “Fitz” for its final voyage from Superior (WI) with 26,116 long tons of taconite ore pellets.
Trains that were operating during my visit passed through a variety of landscapes, bridges built over wide chasms, through tunnels, farmlands, small towns, massive freight yards and cities. The buildings that populated these various landscapes exhibited a great amount of detailing, patience and perseverance in constructing each structure by the person who built them. Looking at some of these dwellings also provided me with some modeling ideas that I hope to incorporate for my own layout.
What does it take to make the museum’s trains run as smoothly as they do? Here are some of the track specifics: 800 feet of code 83 mainline track, 200 feet of branch lines, 100 feet harbor line, 100 feet 4-track siding (receiving / departure tracks), 75 feet hidden staging (12 tracks, 100 cars per a track) and 28 track hump/classification yard.
Signals, switches and turnouts are as follows: twenty custom built signal bridges / ninety-five searchlight signal heads and one dual arm semaphore signal mast. There are also 250 turnouts (Code 83 Shinohara and MicroEngineering) and 250 Tortoise Switch Motors. Decoders are: NCE, MRC, DIGITRAX and QSI. The software used to run this entire operation is Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) and Decoder Pro.
This is a museum I would highly recommend visiting should one be in the Medina area. The museum’s hours of operation are 11 AM to 5 PM on Tuesday through Sunday. Perhaps you to might also be fortunate to receive an invitation from museum director Martin Phelps like I did to have a cup of coffee while talking about the various aspects of railroading, whether it be real or HO trains. The coffee was good and our conversation was even more enjoyable!
Note: Medina, NY is located between Buffalo and Rochester, about 15 miles north of I90 and 10 miles south of the shore of Lake Ontario.
The web site for the museum is: http://www.railroadmuseum.net/