Open Invitation
Anyone is welcome to attend our events. If you are not a member of the NMRA, we invite you to attend up to three of them. We believe that three visits provide the opportunity to evaluate our organization and decide to become a member and enjoy its benefits. You can click on the button to read more about the three visit policy for non-members.
2026 Spring Meet
The Garden State Division spring meet is on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at the Camp Evans/InfoAge Museum in Wall Township, NJ.
We plan for two clinics in the morning followed by afternoon layout tours.
Date, Time, and Location
May 16, 2026
9:00 AM
Camp Evans/InfoAge Museum
2201 Marconi Rd
Wall Township, NJ 07719
Clinic 1:
Scenery: Seens,
Scenes, Screens, Screams – and Serendipity
By Scott Gothe
Scenery for a model
railroad is usually the last thing on the “list”, attended to once the
general idea for a railroad is turned into an operating scheme, bench-
work, track planning and installation, wiring (and re-arranging track
and re-wiring), etc. After all, one can’t put in all of the landscape and
easily damaged items before major construction/reconstruction is
nearing completion, right?
Reducing the “vision” of an environment to “practice” requires a different
way of looking at the role of scenery in many cases. This is especially
true on larger layouts where a team is involved in the overall construction, or when the reality of 1:1 space available limits what can believably
fit in a given area. This talk will highlight several ongoing projects where
new (and old) techniques and ideas for developing scenery are being
employed to address unique challenges.
Clinic 2:
Adapting the Hazard Wire Rope Factory Using Pictures and
Sanborn Maps
By Gerry Michael
The Hazard Wire Rope Factory will be a signature
structure in the Wilkes-Barre, PA, area of the Garden State Central
Model Railroad Club’s HO scale layout. This clinic discusses the use of
photographs and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps to develop a scaled-down version of the factory that will fit in the space available on the
layout. How to find and read Sanborn maps for information relevant to
modeling will also be presented.
Layout Tours
Following the meeting, we will have the opportunity to visit model railroad layouts in the area.