Tidewater & Allegheny Railroad
The Edgewood Arsenal Model Railroad Club, EAMRRC, (Later the Edgewood Area Model Railroad Club) started in 1955 by several military personnel who saw the need to invite civilian members to join for the sake of continuity. Robert DeLeeuw was one of the early civilian members who remained active until his passing in the 1990s. The original HO scale layout was constructed in an old WWll wooden barracks building, E4310, where it thrived until demolition plans caused a relocation and an all new layout in building E5173 in the 1980s. This latter building originally served as a maintenance shop for small electric locomotives which moved chemical agent munitions from the shell filling facility to the finishing area during WW1.
The original railroad layout in E4310 was considered a “freelance” railroad because it represented no particular real railroad. The second layout resembled an east coast railroad running from a tidewater terminal into the Allegheny Mountains. The railroad was named the Tidewater and Allegheny RR. From the city of Tidewater, the railroad remained level until the township of DeLeeuw where the climb into the mountains began. Two major coal mines, one underground mine and one open pit mine, were served by the railroad in this area along with a coal processing plant at the summit of the uphill grade, at the town of East Summit. High in the mountains were two additional coal mines and a plant which turned the mined coal into coke for the production of steel. Along the way were the small towns of Summit Junction and Renard where other small businesses received rail service and riders were served at passenger stations. At the upper end of the line was the city of Allegneny with more railroad served industries and the presumed interchange of freight cars with other known railroads. At the top of the grade, the model railroad track was built on a shelf directly above the lower level track thus providing twice as much railroad property in the limited space of the room.
The Club members met weekly throughout the year on Thursday evenings to build and operate the model railroad. The objective was to simulate in miniature the way real railroads run and fill transportation needs to industries. In later years, one member, the Dispatcher, sat at a computer terminal with a schematic diagram of the model railroad system which tracked the location and movement of each of the several trains on the line. In touch with each locomotive engineers around the room via telephone head set, the Dispatcher planned and directed the train movements giving authorization to each engineer as he ran his train and performed the necessary operations on his “switch list” of railroad cars to set out or add to his train.
For many years, the EAMRRC openedits door frequently to visiting model railroad groups, school and scout organizations, and an annual Open House for the public in November or December. Bel Air and Baltimore newspapers frequently reported these events. Increased installation security following the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks cut back the visits from outsiders who looked forward to viewing the model railroad operation. The EAMRRC again faced building demolition in December 2015 and closed it’s doors for the last time.
