The Cornville Historical Society held their annual meeting on March 16, with a guest lecture on a model railroad facility located in Cornville.
Allen Montgomery, representing the Wyoming Division Historical Society, a model railroad club in Cornville, spoke about their extensive track setup located at 1249 S. Eastern Drive. Montgomery also touched on his affinity for Cornville, which he described as the only place he considers home, and recalled the first train layout he built there in 1986. He grew up swimming and fishing every day, playing with trains when the weather didn’t cooperate.
The Cornville track is about 7,000 feet long and has 130 locomotives that run independently. It is an exact replica of a section of the Union Pacific railroad line from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Ogden, Utah, as it existed in the second week of September of 1957.
To make the model’s operations run correctly, each member has specific roles to play during a session, which Montgomery described as “organized chaos.”
The Wyoming Division Historical Society has been operating for about 11 years and is an ongoing, developing creation. Montgomery expressed the hope that the facility will become a hands-on, interactive museum, comparing it to a playground for adults and children. He touched on the possibility of using it for field trips, which would allow teachers to teach a range of information from geology to physics using the trains.
Montgomery explained that he went to Utah to take photographs to accurately depict the weather and landscape. He even went to every station location and collected dirt, roughly 1,700 pounds in all, to use in building the system. “Don’t tell anybody,” he joked.
Montgomery’s family lived in and around the area the model layout replicates for generations, and he shared his excitement at getting to recreate his grandfather’s lumberyard in Green River. He argued that most model railroaders want to remodel their childhoods and shared some fond memories of chasing trains with his grandfather in Idaho.
The track is laid out on two levels, with a train taking about one hour to go through one level. The organization spent the last 18 months recreating downtown Laramie. Montgomery said he even went there to measure the buildings to get them to scale. Artist Kelly Daniels helped create the continuous backdrop, recreating the wide-open Wyoming spaces in a two foot-deep deep area.
“It’s Cornville-esque,” said Montgomery.
The historical society’s membership numbers are currently down and local residents are encouraged and invited to join.
