David E. Renard
January 9, 1936 – April 7, 2025
In Memoriam: David Renard, MMR #35, passed away on April 7, 2025. To the model railroading community, Dave was a Master Model Railroader. To us, he was a mentor, a friend, and a storyteller whose legacy will continue to roll on-car by car, mile by mile.
Dave Renard was a passionate model railroader from his teenage years and co-founded the Harford Associates for Railroad Modeling, HARM for short. He was particularly proud of earning the designation of Master Model Railroader (#35, 1971) from the National Model Railroad Association. Dave has won multiple awards for his models over the years from the NMRA and his work has been featured in the Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine on several occasions.
Dave’s personal railroad, the Sylvania Central Railroad was begun in 1965 and he continued to work on and improve his layout for over fifty years until the railroad was dismantled in 2017. The modest sized layout (approximately 10’ x 20’) allowed Dave to create a railroad with a level of intricate details that would rival and surpass museum quality displays. Everything featured on his railroad, from the structures to the track itself, was all built by his own hands; he was a master of scratch-building. Dave also put considerable work into several iterations of a club layout located on a local Army base, The Tidewater & Allegheny. Over the years, Dave built numerous structures, rolling stock, locomotives, and custom trackwork for members of our local model railroading club and community. Many pieces of his work continue to serve on layouts around the country.
Throughout his model railroading career, Dave was a member of several related organizations. His first experience with a club was in Pennsylvania at the Greater Abington Township Society of Model Engineers (GATSME). Shortly after joining this club, he got involved with the NMRA by attending Mid-Eastern Region conventions, where he began entering models for judging. These experiences led him to becoming a judge and gave him the opportunity to closely study some fine models and techniques, which in turn added to his modeling ideas and skills. A move to Edgewood, MD had him discover a small model railroad club where he worked as an environmental engineer at Edgewood Arsenal. Throughout this time, he continued to attend regional and national conventions as well as heading out on rail-fanning trips with friends. Through his MER membership, Dave held many different officer positions, including Editor of The Local (newsletter), Regional Contest Chairman, Regional Secretary, Vice President, President and National Trustee, and Eastern Vice President. His membership in the NMRA helped facilitate him being able to take his family to all 50 states, partially to attend NMRA conventions.
The founding of HARM with fellow model railroader Russ Cook allowed them to expand their model railroading influence to many other like-minded individuals. The group has been featured in several local newspaper articles. Dave also wrote two articles for Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine about the group called “In HARM’s Way”. This is a most compatible group that shares and learns from each other. As an extension of the group, Dave and Russ taught an 8-week, non-credit, evening class about model railroading at a local community college for about 25 years. After Russ passed away in 2001, Dave continued to teach the class for several more years until eventually passing on the duties to another local model railroader. Experiences in the class always included tours of the local model railroads and promotion of the NMRA. There is no way to know just how many people have been influenced in this hobby by Dave over the years through his leadership, teaching, and friendship.
In every carefully laid rail and hand-built structure, Dave told a story—not just of railroads, but of patience, imagination, and heart. He was more than a Master Model Railroader—he was a master of bringing dreams to life in miniature. David Renard was 89 years young when he passed, and with his passing a veritable library of railroading knowledge and modeling skill has been lost.
