Pahrump museum hosts free train display with local railroad history

The Pahrump Model Railroad Club will move its quarterly train display into the Pahrump Valley Museum on Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27, filling the meeting area near the Yucca Mountain exhibit with multiple HO-scale modules and several trains running at once. Admission to the museum is free, and the display will be free to view at 401 E Basin Ave in Pahrump.

In 2015, the museum board asked the club to help build a Nye County-focused railroad display centered on the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad and its service to Rhyolite, the old mining town near Beatty that helped anchor the region’s early rail-and-mining economy.

Marilyn Davis welcomes the club because visitors already respond to the train room and because the club’s modules let people see the hobby in action. The museum and historical society collect, preserve and study objects, photographs, local crafts and documents that illustrate the story of Nye County and surrounding areas. The train display sits in the museum’s train room, alongside the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository history exhibit in the back portion of the building.

Ray Squyres sees the museum as a natural fit for the display and the club has long valued the chance to share both the hobby and its local historical ties there. Squyres is also president of the museum board. The museum publicly thanked Squyres and club member Harry Smith in 2021 for helping with an emergency repair task.

The Pahrump Community Library hosted a club display from Dec. 10-13, 2025, and has promoted earlier June and December showings in prior years, along with children’s programming the club continues to support. The museum itself is in the middle of an expansion and remodeling project that will add 4,500 square feet to its existing 5,000 square feet of exhibit space, the Town of Pahrump says.