Coming soon...

"America's Busiest River: The Monongahela" focuses on the shipment of coal from the mines of West Virginia to Pittsburgh. Since coal is a major ingredient in the manufacture of iron and steel, as well as a fuel to power the steel plants, millions of tons was transported through the river, powered by both steam and diesel powered tug boats.

This film was recently acquired by long time NRHS Film and Photo Archivist Mitch Dakelman. Mitch, along with his longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Neal A. Schorr, co-authored two books on the building of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, one of which reached worldwide distribution. Mitch, who collects industrial and railroad documentaries, has also partnered with Periscope Films of Los Angeles, California, whose footage may be seen on YouTube and is made available to film makers needing historical stock footage.

Coming soon...

The Wow Factor...Whether you have a basement empire or a small shelf layout, mainline, or shortline, the wow factor plays a key role. What inspires you to model this? What inspires others? What makes you stand back and say....WOW?!?!?!?

Matthew Hurst’s love for all things railroads started at a very young age...2 months old... when he was introduced to the East Broad Top Railroad. From there, as it has been said, it was all downhill...he was hooked! Railroad modeling was the next logical step and he began his serious journey at 10 years old, actively helping his father with the home layout. He then graduated to full prototype modeling when he focused his attention on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Middle Division in the late 1940's and its post war steam fleet. In addition to the PRR, he fell in love with a shortline railroad, oddly enough, across the mountain west of the EBT, the Huntingdon and Broad Top. He has been researching and building models for both railroads to incorporate into a basement "empire". Also, he has written articles and presented at numerous RPM's and historical society meetings on the prototype and modeling as well.