Within the Colley Block Building at 648 Wheeling Ave, in Cambridge, OH is one of Ohio's largest HO Scale Model Railroad. The GVRR was organized in 1973 by several individuals interested in preserving southeastern Ohio's railroad heritage in model form. Since then, the model railroad has grown to be one of Ohio's largest "solid-state" HO scale railroad, with over 20 scale miles (1260 feet)of mainli
ne track. The layout depicts in part scenes from along the
old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Newark Division and
the old Pennsylvania Railroad's Marietta Branch. The era of the layout focuses on the 1930's to the late 1960's, but modern diesel locomotives (as well as everyone's favorite, the steam locomotives) are operated frequently. The layout has a 2-mile branch line that serves several "deep" coal mines. These mines and their surrounding communities were built from scratch with the aid of old photographs, in order to represent such actual mines as Black Top" and "Forsythe". A typical run over the entire railroad mainline takes on average about 1 hour. En route, as many as 10 trains may be encountered that are running in the same or opposite direction. Helper or "Pusher" locomotives are
frequently required in order to help push the long freights and heavy coal drags over the 2% mountain grades. And, unlike today's modern railroads, the GVRR still uses cabooses on its freight trains. So, if you are ready to reminisce about the "glory days" of railroading, visit the Guernsey Valley HO Scale Model Railroad in Cambridge, Ohio.