We are a group of highly dedicated hobbyists who build and teach how to build model railroads. This is a fascinating, educational hobby where so much can be learned about science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM). We are in the process of developing a model railroad museum for our community of Hampton Roads. We have been researching and planning this for about 3 years, and we are now ready to begin implementing our plans. We have already been approved by the State Corporation Commission and the IRS as a 501(c)3 non-profit charity and community service. We are currently looking for a suitable location (15-25,000 square feet) in which to build about 12-15 model railroads depicting all the different model train gauges. We will be open to the public to view and run trains and will sponsor school tours. We will even have students come in and build their own layouts. Be sure to check our website to learn more about us. Of course, we will need lots of volunteers and donations to get started, but with luck, we could be up and running by next year at this time!
The Virginia Beach Model Railroading group previously had a display at the Fairfield Shopping Center in a space that was provided for free by the owner, Jon Wheeler, who always felt that the model railroad brought in customers that would add traffic to his other businesses nearby. In fact they did see an increase in productivity of about 10% while our Railroad was in operation. We were there for almost 10 years. Unfortunately, the new owner of the shopping center did not see the value of having the Model Railroad in one of its spaces, so we had to leave. In the process of searching for a new facility in which to display our HO railroad, we decided we wanted to go much bigger than that, and start a Museum that contained displays of all the major scales, in addition to providing a library for research, videos of railroad history, classes and hands-on clinics where people could learn how to do their own miniature landscaping, model building, etc.
