The big news around Southeast Kansas is the floods that happened the last week of June, the first week of July. Our region made it on national news and even on The Weather Channel. Long before that transpired, the CVMR Club received a call that would end an 18 year stint in the former Santa Fe depot, located in Cherryvale, KS.
In May of this year, our landlord, the SKOL Railroad, gave us notice that the freight end of the depot was needed for their train crews. After further review and discussions, our time in the depot was indeed coming to an end. Our minds were pre-occupied with our local model railroad show held in conjuction with the Katy Days Festival on Memorial Day weekend. Once that show was over, we focused on the task at hand, taking down the HO and the N scale layouts and putting them in storage in the Leatherrock Hotel basement. One of the hotel's owners and a fellow club member, Wayne Hallowell, was gracious enough to offer the basement to store the railroad and to someday build a new railroad there in the basement.The SKOL Railroad was told we would be out by July 1st, so the entire month of June was spent deconstructing a layout that took 10 plus years to assemble. Our last running of the trains was June 1st. We had as many club members there as possible to run trains, photograph the layout and just enjoy the fruits of our labor over those past 10 plus years.
The above photo is from that last run. We had a few guests show up, just like any other Friday night. As a club, anyone that knew about us would pop in on a Friday night to see what was going on. We even picked up new members this way, just by having our door open and inviting anyone in to look around. How else can we share our hobby and our passion with the youth and the old alike?
There will be additional pages with pictures on our website with what a model railroad layout looks like as it is torn down. Needless to say, for those of us in the club, it was a sad month. A lot of the layout could not be saved or safely stored for further use. It has ended up in the local landfill, along with years of other memories that we couldn't save. The club came to the Santa Fe depot in Cherryvale around 1988. We built a big layout in the south end of the building. In 1991, The Heart of the Heartlands moved into the south end and refurbished the building, bringing it back to it's former glory days. That dedication ceremony took place during the first half of 1993. The club moved into the freight end during this time and started from the ground floor. We had to put in a lowered ceiling, new sheetrock for the walls, new lights and fans. In later years, a new foam roof was applied, which solved our water leaks and the freight doors were covered over with fake doors to seal up the cracks. This added insulation improved our efficiency in heating and cooling our room.
We added air conditioning in 2005 and added a new heater as well. That trackside location was ideal on Friday nights, we would hear a train and go out on the platform to watch one roll by. Our members will have fond memories of this building and the friendships that have been forged there over the years as well. Before we conclude this chapter of the story, we cannot forget to thank someone who made our dreams of keeping a model railroad in a former depot possible. Our sincere thanks to Mr. Dick Webb, who gave us so much during those 18 years in his building. We always had a "gentlemans" agreement with him, if we had any problems, just contact him directly and he would solve them for us. Fixing that roof was a huge financial hurdle for us and he made that happen thru his generosity. There were countless other times as well and we want to thank him for all that he has done for not only the railroad industry, but also helping to support us in our model railroading hobby.