By DON STINE
It’s the end of the line for the Garden State Central Model Railroad Club, a museum-quality model railroad display located on Eighth Avenue in Asbury Park for 35 years.
The building housing the club has been sold and the exhibit must now move on or pack it up.
But instead of having to permanently pack it up, as other clubs have done in the past, the trains may be able to keep on rolling at the InfoAge Museum at the old Camp Evans site in Wall Township.
The museum specializes in information sciences and also has miniature train displays.
InfoAge President Fred Carl said the museum would love to have the club on board in the near future.
“We sure hope they do come. Their board wants to talk to us so we are eager to hear,” he said.
But, for now, the trains will have their last public run and be packed up with an uncertain future ahead.
The “Last Run in Asbury Park” open house will be held Sat., Feb. 21 from noon to 3 p.m. at the club’s headquarters at 607 Eighth Avenue, at the corner of Deal Lake Drive.
All ages are welcome and there is no admission fee although donations to help the club pack up and move are being sought.
The club must abandon the long-time basement home of its nationally-known HO-scale model railroad and seek new headquarters because a large health conglomerate has purchased the building.
Club Trustee Rob Davis said there were two other railroad clubs along the Monmouth County shore in years past but that they all lost their locations.
“This time the results will be different. The club will go on but our beloved display in Asbury Park has reached the end of its line,” he said.
Carl said some of the club’s members have been fundamental in forming InfoAge and that the club would certainly be welcomed there.
”I would hope they would consider us but they have to make that decision,” Carl said.
Carl said there is currently no room at InfoAge for the club’s exhibit because the Army has not yet transferred several buildings to the museum.
“But we hope for that to happen within the next few months,” he said.
Carl said 10,000 youngsters would get to see the club’s layout at the museum and give it more of a public presence.
Davis said the club has wanted to move to the InfoAge museum for years but federal bureaucracy always seems to get in the way.
“This is something that has been ongoing for the last 10 years but the building has not been turned over yet,” he said.
Davis said dealing with the governmental bureaucracy always seems to bring things to a dead end.
“It would be a dream to move there but these are things that are not under Fred’s control. We have all been working diligently on this but deadlines come and go and they are not fulfilled.
“Fred has been great and it’s not his fault. Moving to InfoAge would be great but he can’t control it and we will be out of a home,” Davis said.
Davis said the club has no other options right now but he said members will continue to be involved with InfoAge.
“It’s such a great project,” he said.
Carl said Wall Township has signed the deed to the property intended for the club and paperwork is at the Pentagon to receive the appropriate signatures.
“This is the final phase and I cannot see any other reason to hold it up. I hope it will proceed in a timely manner and be just months away- at the worst. We are all but one signature away,” he said.
The Garden State Central Model Railroad Club was first formed in Long Branch in 1963 by a group of Asbury Park Press employees and has entertained thousands of shore residents, young and old, over the years
The club’s current layout depicts scenes from the Lehigh Valley, Jersey Central, Laurel Line and Lackawanna railroads on a route from Jersey City to Scranton, Pa.
And the club said it has nothing but respect and gratitude for their landlords for the past 25 years, Davis said.
“We have had a good long run here on Eighth Avenue. Without the guiding hands of our landlords Dr. Richard ‘Goose’ Gosling and Dr. Carl Lepis, I don’t know where we would be,” he said.
For more information on the railroad club go to www.gardenstatecentral.com.
For more information on InfoAge go to www.infoage.org.
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