Detroit Model Railroad Club makes for interesting stop in Holly

More than three quarters of a century ago, members of the Detroit Society of Model Engineers decided to start their own club. In January of 1935, the Detroit Model Railroad Club was born. The club would house their very first collaborative model train layout in club President Perry Dorrance’s basement.

Over the years, the club moved several times before winding up at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in 1958.  They would build their model railroad there for the next 16 years until being evicted in the fall of 1973.

Longstanding DMRC member Ed MacDowell said the organization moved to Holly in 1974. MacDowell said the building near the intersection of Maple and Saginaw Streets in downtown Holly formally housed a theater was available and affordable. “We moved up here with the idea that we would spend a year here until we found a better place,” he said. That was 37 years ago.

“At the end of the first year, we decided that this was a better place than any place we could find in Detroit,” MacDowell said. With its sloped floor, the old theater offered great possibilities to the model builders. “When we informed the landlord we were going to stay, he promptly doubled the rent,” he added.

The landlord, however, offered a clause in the agreement, stating that if the club was interested in buying the building after a year, they could do so. “We had the option to purchase the building, so we bought the building by borrowing money from our members to finance it.”

With just 50 members, they began the task of building the extensive railroad that exists today.

Detroit Union Railroad
Patterned after the Union railroads of several Midwest cities including Cleveland, Cincinnati and St. Louis, the Detroit Union Railroad has about 4,000 feet of track in place, making it approximately four times larger than the previous layout housed at the State Fairgrounds in 1958.

“A big difference is that this railroad has an elevation change from the lowest point to the highest point of about 12 feet which as far as we know, is probably as much as any model railroad in the world because of our unique floor arrangement,” MacDowell said. MacDowell said that the elevation would increase even further after members construct the city of Detroit in the lower level of the building, a task not scheduled to begin for another five to ten years.

According to MacDowell, all of the track you see in today’s model is steel rail, hand laid track. “It’s 25 ties to the foot, four spikes in each tie, and all put in by hand,” he said. “It takes us about an hour to spike one foot of track when we actually get around to doing that.”

Railroad design
In general, MacDowell says the plan made in 1935 is the plan that they continue to use today. “The thing we have here that we didn’t have at the other locations is the elevation,” he said. “We’ve sort of moved the Porcupine Mountains 400 miles south, just outside of Detroit,” he said smiling. “Detroit will be in the basement and the trains will leave Detroit and wind around through these mountains and come up through to the town at the back of the theater.” The town of Dorrance, named after the club’s first president, will be the end of the Detroit Union Railroad.

As for why Holly, Fenton and Linden aren’t found in the layout, MacDowell says it’s because members of the club never visualized any real cities existing in their model besides Detroit.

“Now that it’s built, we’ve come up with sort of a rationalization over what it was we built,” said MacDowell. “We sort of pretend that we have a railroad that starts in Detroit and one branch goes west toward Battle Creek or Kalamazoo, and another branch goes north toward the thumb.”

Future plans and open houses
The Detroit Model Railroad Club celebrated their 75th anniversary last year.  In addition to continuing work on their model, the club has worked with Oakland County’s Main Street Program, enhancing the look of the building from the street.

“We just got the go ahead from the village to put in the front pillar,” MacDowell said. “It’s looking better and better.”

In addition to the exterior façade, the group is currently working on expanding the display, implementing an industrial area to include an automotive plant and associated buildings. “We’re patterning it off the GM plant in Flint,” MacDowell said. “We’ve got it all laid out – we should have it up and running hopefully by next fall.”

While utilities and taxes for the building are covered by membership dues, funding for improvements to the railroad come from the revenue generated by the eight to ten open houses that are hosted by the club each year. With monthly open houses, the club tries to have a good assortment of trains circulating the track, including a "candy train" for the kids. The Detroit Model Railroad Club will be open during the weekend of Dec. 10-11 as part of the annual Holly Dickens Festival.  For more information about the club and the Detroit Union Railroad, visit the Detroit Model Railroad Club on-line.

For more information, visit the The Detroit Model Railroad Club website online.