Robbie Smith watched with delight as her 9-year-old son ran around the Golden State Model Railroad Museum in Point Richmond during a recent visit.
“Roc Roc,” as he’s known, followed the small-scale steam engines and passenger trains as they navigated the various tracks and landscapes inside the 10,000-square-foot museum.
Smith told Richmondside her son is on the autism spectrum and has a special fascination with trains. They like to check out the real-life trains on the tracks near their home on the west side of Richmond and regularly watch videos of locomotives together.
Golden State Model Railroad Museum
What: A family friendly place to watch model trains chug around realistic landscapes.
Where: 900-A Dornan Drive
Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Cost: Free on Saturdays (no trains running); Sundays: $5 for adults and children 12 and older; $3 for seniors 63 and up and children 4 to 11; or $10 for families.
More details: Every fourth Sunday is a “theme” day. The museum is closed from January to March for annual maintenance and upgrades.
But the model trains at the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline hold a particular place in Roc Roc’s heart. They have visited the museum a half-dozen times the past year.
“If he could come here every weekend, he would,” Smith said.
More than 150 people visit the cavernous museum on Dornan Drive on any given weekend. It’s free on Saturdays but no trains are running so most visitors come on Sundays, the day when volunteers from the East Bay Model Engineers Society operate the miniature trains.
It’s quite a sight with a half-dozen model locomotives pulling cars through three different landscapes.
The O-scale section of the museum is a series of hills and towns that are conjured up in the imaginations of the members of the engineers’ society.
The N and HO sectors, a technical name based on their size to scale, are built to depict real places such as the train station in Oakland, the railroad trestle near the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez and the famous Tehachapi Loop outside Bakersfield.
Visitors can view these settings up close along a 200-foot path that winds through the landscapes.
The trains that run through the displays range from steam locomotives to Amtrak passenger trains.
Jay Sathe, a member of the museum board of directors, said the facility provides enjoyment for both the visitors and the model train enthusiasts who run it.
“We’re proud of how much we are able to show here,” said Sathe, an Oakland resident who works as a graphic artist for BART. “We get to show off our work every weekend.”
Colin Minekheim was one of the engineers society members who was volunteering there on a recent Sunday.
He said he enjoys watching the families absorbing the atmosphere, all without computer screens or people talking on their mobile devices.
“Cell phones are just cameras in here,” Minekheim said.
“It’s nice to do something that doesn’t involve a screen”
On this Sunday, several dozen people were walking slowly through the museum, watching the model trains roll along the tracks behind plexiglass enclosures. Most of the visitors were parents and children.
Among them was Hailyn Nielsen and her husband, Alex Pagon, who had brought their sons Joshua, 6, and Teddy, 4.
This was the San Francisco family’s first visit to the museum. They had heard about it from a friend. Nielsen was impressed.
“It’s immense, and it’s really well done,” she said. “It’s nice to be doing something that doesn’t involve a screen.”
Emily Moran was nearby with her son Caden, 9, and her daughter, Brie, 7. The Richmond family was busy completing a scavenger hunt sheet they had picked up at the front desk, marking off items they spotted in the train landscapes.
“This is really letting their imaginations go,” Moran said. “There’s so much to see here.”
Caden and Brie’s grandparents, Al and Donna Nugent, were just a few feet away. The couple was visiting from Ohio and decided to tag along on the museum excursion.
Al Nugent said he has enjoyed model trains since he first glimpsed one under his family’s Christmas tree when he was 6 years old.
“The trains bring back childhood,” he said.
Engineers society membership fee funds train museum
The museum is overseen by a 501-C nonprofit organization. The East Bay Model Engineers Society, which was founded in 1933 and is one of the oldest continually operating model railroad groups in the United States, charges its members a $240 annual fee that funds most of the museum operations, which run from $20,000 to $30,000 annually. About 70 society volunteers keep the place running. Among other things, they assemble the model trains, build the landscapes and operate the trains on Sundays.
Construction began on the model railroad museum in 1986. It was opened to the public in 1991. The museum is along the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline near the tunnel to Point Richmond.
Sathe says the museum offers more than just a place to watch model trains roll along miniature tracks.
“It’s more of a history museum,” he said. “It’s really important to have a place where people can go and see the huge benefit railroads have provided. I don’t think most people realize the degree of importance railroads had. They were absolutely essential.”
Railroads played a key role in Richmond’s development as an industrial center in the early 1900s. The Chevron refinery began as a Standard Oil processing plant built along the new rail lines. The Iron Triangle neighborhood got its nickname from the railroad tracks that crossed through the area. The downtown area along Macdonald Avenue grew up adjacent to those tracks.
Sathe noted that engineer society members are constantly making changes to the landscapes, the trains and the tracks.
“There’s an old adage that you never really finish a model railroad,” he said.
Like Minekheim, Sathe enjoys talking with museum visitors.
“I love being able to show people what a cool thing this is,” he said.
Smith and her son Roc Roc certainly agree on the coolness factor. Smith expects to return soon with her son.
“He’ll be talking about the museum from the time we leave until we come back again,” she said.
