KD Sunday Spotlight: All aboard for the McKeesport Model Railroad Club holiday open house
MCKEESPORT (KDKA) - The McKeesport Model Railroad Club is carrying on a longtime tradition and sharing its passion with the community for the holiday season.
For many families, Christmas isn't complete without a train circling beneath the tree. There's an impressive model railroad you and your family can enjoy and get into the holiday spirit.
In McKeesport's Christy Park neighborhood exists a miniature world that represents the Mon Valley.
Trains go chugging along the tracks of the McKeesport Model Railroad Club's elaborate display of a fictional Mon Yough Valley railroad.
"The layout represents western Pennsylvania but it's a fictitious railroad, but it's based on a lot of real, local areas," said Steve Raith, vice president of the McKeesport Model Railroad Club.
The nonprofit organization's model train layout is 2,200 square feet and takes you back to the 1950s by highlighting the steel-making process that once thrived in southwestern Pennsylvania.
"So if you think about Clairton Coke Works, we have a very small version of that over there, the train will bring coal down from the coal mine to the coke plant from there they'll make coke, they'll bring it down and put it in the blast furnace, kind of represent what the Carrie Furnace was," Mike Pilyih, secretary of the board of directors for the McKeesport Model Railroad Club.
The private club was founded in 1950 by a group of model railroaders who took out a newspaper ad asking if anyone else wanted to join. It still thrives today with around 45 male and female members.
"We've really grown over the last several years, we have all ages… we have junior members 7- and 8-year-olds, all the way up to retired folks in their 80s," Raith said.
The exclusive club invites families to their clubhouse on Walnut Street every weekend in December for their holiday open house. It includes a scavenger hunt to find details like a barge in the river and a house on fire.
For Raith and the organization's president George Sharp, it's something special to carry on a decades-old tradition.
"It's generational, there's a lot of people who remember going to the club in the 50s and 60s and. Now they're bringing their grandchildren here to come and see the trains, see the layouts, see all the miniatures everywhere," Raith said.
"They come in and ask questions and just the excitement and we even have stools for kids to close up to the action and to hear the trains chuff and the whistles and just interfacing not only with the kids, with the families as well and try to spread some holiday cheer," Sharp said.
The McKeesport Model Railroad Club also does community outreach. They have a semi-permanent layout at the Carnegie Library of McKeesport.
Members with different skill sets learn from each other and they go to freight lengths to curate the little scenes. You'll even spot familiar buildings from McKeesport.
"They work a lot of putting a lot of time and detail into some of the people, we do what's called weathering to the buildings, so they look a little more aged and it adds a lot to the realism of the layout," Raith said.
McKeesport has had a negative reputation since the steel industry disappeared in the mid-1980s. This organization is a bright spot in the city.
"Most of the buildings that you see in this mill here were actually scratch-built in the 1970s by a former member - one of the former founding members," Pilyih said.
Pilyih loves watching their ideas come to life. It's a work in progress and a labor of love.
They're proud to say their display serves as a reminder of the importance of railroads past and present.
"What we do here is we try to represent what was, you don't see it anymore, most of it is gone now. We represent what did exist in the world of industry in the late 50s and early 1960s and made this area what it is now," Pilyih said.
"What's really neat is we have, there's a variety because we have so many members that enjoy that 1950s, but we also have members who enjoy the most prototypical and latest stuff that's out there. So, we cover the wide range," Sharp said.
As this hobby is picking up steam, you still have time to catch the trains before the new year!
"We'll see the same people walk around for two hours on end. You can keep walking around this layout and never find enough detail on it. You walk around, you think you've seen everything, you walk around again, next thing you know you find more detail. It's always cool to find new things on the layout," Pilyih said.
You can stop by the holiday open house on December 17, December 23, and December 30. The event runs from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Santa will be there.
The nonprofit only asks for a small donation of a few bucks for adults and kids over 5, which helps them pay their taxes.
Keep an eye on the McKeesport Model Railroad Club Facebook page, they have random open houses throughout the year.
If you want to become a member, you have to fill out an application.
If you would like to see an organization highlighted in KDKA's Sunday Spotlight segment, send Jessica Guay an email at jguay@kdka.com