We hold our meetings every Friday night beginning at 7 p.m. and continue thru the night. The club has been in existence for 28 years. In those 28 years, we have been in many places and we have finally ended up here, in downtown Cherryvale, KS, housed inside of an ex-Santa Fe depot. Our membership varies, but we currently have less than twenty members. Our membership dues are $5 a month and these dues help the club to buy materials and supplies to keep our railroad running. Anyone that is interested in model railroading and would like to join our club, stop by on any Friday evenings to see us!

We have open houses during the year for the general public to come and see the accomplishments that we have made. Our model railroad is named the Neosho Valley Lines, a fictitious line that runs as an "X" from Superior, Nebraska; Topeka, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri south to Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Fort Smith, Arkansas area. Our HO scale layout covers the line from Kansas City to Ft. Smith, while the N-scale layout models the last few miles of the NVL from Fort Smith into coal country at Hartford, Arkansas and an interchange connection with the Rock Island Railroad.

The Ozark and Oklahoma subdivisions of the Neosho Valley Lines are represented in our HO scale re-creation. Construction on this particular layout began in 1991 after extensive renovations to the freight room of the depot were completed. In the following years, work has progressed to the point you see.

The layout features point-to-point operations from two stub-ended staging yards representing points located north and south of the modeled part of the NVL. We'll begin our tour at the north end of the line.

Gowan Yard in Kansas City: This is the beginning point of our modeling. It will be our staging yard to start trains onto our system.
Norton Yard: Norton is the biggest classification yard on the NVL. The yard has a large roundhouse and turntable for steam locomotives and diesel servicing. There is also a large switching yard that handles all trains passing thru Norton. There are 12 classification tracks capable of handling 135 to 180 cars and several industries in the area to switch as well.
Cross: This will be the busiest place on the railroad. This site has the mainline and the branch line to Cherryvale converging in one spot to enter Norton Yard. A large meat packing plant and a rock quarry are also situated here.

From Cross, we will go down the branch line into the town of Cherryvale:

Valley Jct.: This passing track is set at the bottom of our mountain scene. It serves the purpose of being a passing track and to interchange cars with another railroad.
Cherryvale: This town is the most complete because it is our show loop for our open houses. Several of our talented members have scratch built the buildings in Cherryvale, for example, the depot and the Ringstaff Lumber yard are scratch built from two different members.
Cherry Point: This is the end of the line for this secondary line. Cherry Point represents a port facility that will handle train cars being loaded onto barge traffic going to other destinations. This area will encompass several industries with a lot of traffic generated.

Let's go back to Cross and continue our tour from there to the town of Parapet Jct.:

Parapet Jct.: Is a small community located on the mountain and serves our railroad as being the junction of the branch to the Midway mine and the mainline.
Midway Mine: This area represents our coal mine on this tiny branch line. There are several tracks for loading coal cars going to other areas of the system.
Walter: This town is the first stop for a train that has just climbed the hill from Norton Yard. A passing track and several industries are located here.
Norman: Is our "city scene" for the layout. There will be passenger station and a lot of city buildings in the background. Check out the Daily Planet newspaper building!
Moberly: A tiny community that contains a passing track and several industries. The grain elevator was scratch built by one of our members and is based off of the grain elevator in Cherryvale.
Raymond: Represents a small switching yard. It has a turntable for locomotives and the yard will be used for local service. This yard has five tracks for switching cars.
Stomp Yard in Ft. Smith: This is the last stop for the tour. It is a staging area for trains to begin and end their journeys on the Neosho Valley Lines.