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General Information and History about "The Club"
 
The  Riverbend Model Railroad Club was organized in 1992 and has been located in various buildings  through out the years including the Tell Building, a Grandville Industrial Suite, and the Antique Mall.  In 2005 the club started to build its signature theme layout of a fictitious Superior Northern railroad that was a 32'x22' double level HO scale layout and was located in the Grand River Construction Building in Hudsonville just west of Gemen's Hardware.    The Superior Northern railroad represented Upper Peninsula railroading circa 1960 with some "modeler's license" to allow the presence of the last of the steam locomotives as well as a few newer diesel locomotives.  The principle industries on the railroad were pulp wood, paper products, and, of course, iron ore mining.  The Superior Northern mainline ran from Sault St. Marie, Michigan to just west of Ishpeming.  The club modeled the towns of Sault St. Marie, Soo Junction, St. Ignace, Newberry, Munising, Marquette, Negaunee, Ishpeming, and Palmer.  Some points of interest were the Chief Wawatam railroad car ferry at St. Ignace, the International Bridges at Sault St. Marie, and the DSS&A ore dock and ore boat at Marquette.  This was a fully operational layout with operating sessions held once per month.  A photo gallery of our now defunct Superior Northern layout is available by clicking here.   While still operating the Superior Northern layout, in 2007 the club also started  a modular HO scale railroad based on the Grand Rapids and Indiana (GR&I) which was located in the basement of Sunset Manor.


In 2011 the club lost the Hudsonville location and the railroad was disassembled and the last operating session was held on November 14, 2011.  All the signature pieces were saved and stored at the Sunset location.  When permission was obtained to build a new layout at Sunset Manor, the initial thinking was to use the GR&I modular layout and some initial expansion was started.  However, that decision was soon rescinded and the club decided to recreate a bigger and better Superior Northern.  In September of 2015  construction was started on the new layout in the basement of Sunset Manor but a portion of the existing GR&I was maintained until February of 2017 in order to have some operating trains while construction of the new layout was underway.  In February the GR&I was completely disassembled and some sections were given to a club member while at the same time construction of phase II of the Superior Northern was started.  Information and pictures of the old GR&I layout can be found by clicking here. In August, 2019 the first operating session was held on the new layout.  As of January, 2020 no regular operating session schedule has been set yet and work is now centered on getting some of the signature scenery constructed.  If you are interested in participating in an operating session please use the "Contact Us" page to send an Email and your name will be added to the list to be notified of future operating sessions.
 

The Club meets every Monday night to work on the new layout and run a few trains.   Visitors are welcome from 7:15pm-9:00pm.  Please check out the Superior Northern Construction page on this web site to see where the new railroad is in the construction process.  All the track has been built but some may be out of service due to ongoing construction.  If you are an experienced model railroader, a person just new to the hobby, or somebody just curious about what is going on down in the basement of Sunset Manor  you are invited to come and visit us on Monday evenings and check out the Riverbend Model Railroad Club.  Club dues are currently $10/month ($5/month for seniors over 65 and free for Sunset residents) for individuals interested in joining the club.  Junior memberships are also available.   If you are interested in learning more about some of the operations involved in the operating sessions of a model railroad please click here.