All Aboard!

Snow Hill’s Corddry Company Crossing Model Railroad Club
Is Miles Of Fun — And Then Some

The elaborate train display on the second floor of Pocomoke River Canoe Company already stands approximately 40’x20’ and has 1.16 miles of track for nearly a dozen model trains to run on. But store owner Barry Laws says there is always room for more.

“We just can’t help ourselves,” said Laws, who is also the president of the Corddry Company Crossing Model Railroad Club. His store in Snow Hill again provides the backdrop for the club’s 27th annual holiday train garden. The expansive layout, which found its current home nearly two decades ago, will feature a model of Furnace Town Historic Site, added lighting and more buttons for kids to press.

The layout already includes custom models of Beamon Hardware and Pullman’s Lumber Yard, and of course the canoe store. It also has a model of the Pocomoke River with water flowing through it and, on occasion, goldfish swimming in it.

“It has slowly expanded. Now, we’re almost out of room. So we’re working on building upward,” said club member and engineer Frank Deuter, 20, who has been a member since he was 5 years old. “We’re building up a little every year.”

The multitrack, multi-train setup runs trains ranging from the early 1900s to the modern era, but all have realistic sound effects and smoke emanating from them. “He runs the trains with his phone and all that. In the old days, you couldn’t do all that,” Laws said of Deuter. “But the old trains are great still, too.” Either way, kids and their families serve as the inspiration.

“It’s fun to see people of all ages enjoy it,” Laws said. “We feel like we’ve done a good job with the space we have. We try to improve it every year, add something to it ever year, and we’ve been successful in doing that.”

FULL SPEED AHEAD The Corddry Company Crossing Model Railroad Club features 12 train sets that can run simultaneously on more than a mile of track.

Story by Victor Fernandes
Photos by Grant L. Gursky

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