Piedmont and Western Railroad Club

06/12/2026

We are actively seeking new members to our club. If you have an interest in model railroading, come join us any Thursday night at 7:30 and check us out. We will explain our very simple and economical membership process. We have an awesome museum with lots of railroad memorabilia and a large HO scale layout. Please join us. 🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂

06/12/2026

Tonight, we added a Norfolk and Western Railway Tunnel sign to the N&W corner of the museum. Our next open house and workday is Saturday, June 20, 2026. Come and check us out!

For the Waldensian Festival open house August 8, 2026, we are having a raffle for a Southern Railway lantern. The lantern is clean and in great condition. Tickets will be $5.00 each. Contact us if you're interested in a ticket.

If you are interested in joining the club, our membership is always open. We always need experienced modelers and operators and new, eager, folks ready to jump in and learn! Come join us if you're close to Valdese! We have a lot of projects to stay busy.

05/02/2026

Our next workday and open house on May 16, 2026 was moved to NEXT Saturday, May 9, 2026 starting at 9 AM until 2 PM. The train show in Spencer, NC is May 16th and we hope to attend. Thanks!

Photo taken by Gene Austin April 26, 2026 at Huntdale, NC along part of the rebuilt, Helene decimated, portion of the Clinchfield Railroad.

04/24/2026

BNSF/NS consist on PWRR

04/21/2026

Y6B on PWRR

04/20/2026

This Saturday, April 25, 2026, the railroad club will be open from 9 AM to 3 PM for the annual Town of Valdese Spring Craft Show at the Old Rock School. Please share and spread the word.

There will be items available for donations and admission is free. The club lives on donations, so we ask if you enjoy the club, to donate generously, if you can. Thank you and we hope to see a great turnout on Saturday!

03/14/2026

Come visit PWRR museum. Lots of very nice exhibits with much thanks to Gene Austin.

03/08/2026

The Piedmont and Northern was a unique and cherished interurban railway split into two divisions- North Carolina and South Carolina. They ran electric locomotives in the south!

The road ran from Gastonia, NC to Charlotte, NC and Spartanburg, SC to Greenwood, SC with a spur to Anderson, SC. They had plans to connect north and south but, unfortunately, they never came to fruition. Here are a few of the P&N artifacts on display at our museum. The photos were taken in Anderson, SC at the surviving P&N freight and passenger stations. Photos by Gene Austin on 3/7/2026.

02/27/2026

Tonight we started the process of building the 'tree house' over the layout for HVAC servicing.

Also, we added a 1944 Carolina and Northwestern Railway timetable to our C&N-W/original NS display case. Some Piedmont and Northern Railway timetable supplements were added to the P&N display case as well.

The headlight for Clinchfield Mikado 415 will be added to the display case opposite Clinchfield L-3 Mallet 743's headlight. We now have a Clinchfield Consolidation, Mikado, Mallet, and Challenger light on display.

02/13/2026