Whether or not the SMART board settles on a Harmon Street location for the Healdsburg station, or the one on Vine Street, a silent force is at work distorting the gravity around the discussion. Housing, population density, parking spaces, available jobs—all can be measured against common metrics, but a large part of the appeal of the Hudson Street site is based on its history, if not outright nostalgia for train travel.
For the past two decades, the model-train enthusiasts of the North Coast Historical Model Railroad Society have met once a month at the historic freight depot on Hudson Street, quietly but enthusiastically pursuing a passion project: building an indoor model railroad at the HO 1:87 scale, 271 feet long winding through the freight depot. It replicates the old railway run by the former Northwest Pacific Railroad (NWP) as it chugged from Marin County to Hopland, defining in its route the Sonoma County of today.
The “society” has about 40 members, but a fraction of that membership shows up to work on the model each month, coming from as far away as San Leandro as they have since 2002. They meet in the southernmost building on Hudson, the former freight depot; the smaller building toward the middle of town was the ticket or passenger depot.
Anyone can visit the model rail project at the freight depot when the volunteers are present. They’ll find diligent train buffs fussing over the model trains, keeping the tracks clean from fallen debris off the imperfect ceiling, then toying with the turns and the curves of the model rail to best replicate, if in highly compressed form, the 70 miles it represents. It’s ironic if unintentional that that is about the same number of miles SMART promises to cover when it finally builds out from Larkspur to Cloverdale. And on the same tracks.
“We’ve got a coating on the rail, but you still see it gets dirty,” said David Sheber as he wiped his gloved finger over the small rail. “This is where a lot of your volunteer work comes into maintenance of a layout. So welcome to the depot.” He is the president and project manager of the Healdsburg Freight Depot Museum Society.
Volunteers and train enthusiasts have been coming to this big open warehouse, cold in winter and hot in summer, for many years. No one seems in any hurry, and the model rail is more unfinished than built.
“We’ve been in the depot now for almost 25 years,” Sheber said. “We have a right of entry permit dated 2002 signed with the North Coast Railroad Authority,” the agency that oversaw the NWP after it ceased carrying passengers, or freight.
The NCRA was dissolved and absorbed into SMART in 2022. The northern half became the Great Redwood Trail, a mixed-use pathway (like the Foss Creek Pathway) without any rail service at all. SMART is built on the rails of the NWP.
The right of entry permit means they can store the railroad equipment, according to Sheber. “Our nonprofit for the railroad is to educate people on the history of model railroading, initially as a club until they found the space—a former freight depot. Then they started the Healdsburg Freight Depot Society as a nonprofit with the intent of opening a museum,” he said. “We want to open it back up to the public, give it to the public as a museum, an education tool, a digital research library …”
He has other ideas too, such as modeling this invented museum after one in San Diego, incorporating the Healdsburg Museum resource and those from the NWP Historical Society and other Sonoma County organizations as well.
Which is not to say the Healdsburg Freight Depot Society isn’t open to the opportunity, or unaware of the possibilities, should SMART opt to place its platform right outside their rail-side door. But is its effort related to the SMART station location currently being debated in Healdsburg?
“Our focus is on the building, the history of this building,” Kent Hinton, president of the Sonoma County Model Railroad Society, said. He works hand in glove with Sheber’s museum society. “Our vision and goal for this location is to get the building restored.”
But Sheber speculated that the museum, if it opens, could be open more than just three-or-four-day weekends. “Maybe the station does make it to Harmon versus Vine, then maybe we go for a little bit more,” he mused. “I mean, some museums are open seven days a week … I could only dream that big.”
He agrees that the main point is railroad history. “Railroading here is very crucial to everything. So we want to emphasize why that’s important,” Sheber said.
It’s not just nostalgia that drives this train, though. As Sheber pointed out, “One thing that’s really nice about model railroading is that some special needs children really find solace in running a train … . When you have that horn, that whistle and you see that smile on the kid’s face, that’s what I want.”
The Healdsburg Freight Depot Museum next opens to the public on Nov. 21, and again on Dec. 19, at 10am. Learn more about the North Coast Historical Model Railroad Society at nchmrs.net.
