A sprawling HO-scale layout depicting familiar landscapes along the historic routes of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey can be viewed by the public during the Holiday Open Houses hosted at the Lehigh and Keystone Valley Model Railroad Museum at 705 Linden St., through Jan. 19.

Formed in 1994, the Lehigh & Keystone Valley Model Railroad Club began work on their massive miniature Lehigh Valley-based layout in the building they purchased in 1996. They opened it up as a museum in 2006.

“It’s actually a building inside a building,” says club member Anthony Raspantini from Mount Bethel. He explained it began as a small structure for managing horses, expanded into a carriage house and service station, then expanded again to house a butcher shop. A Matt Halm mural graces one of the outside walls.

The 5,000 square-foot layout consisting of about 7,000 feet of track, runs across two decks with a track helix connecting the lower with the upper level. High-tech hardware and software provide the club members with the ability to prototypically operate the trains.

“We cover the Lehigh Valley from West Portal, New Jersey, which is the Bloomsbury area, to Bethlehem. We then travel north to Pittston, ending in Ludlowville, New York.” says Bill Christian. “We model the Reading from Quakertown, Pennsylvania, north to Bethlehem and then west to Reading.”

Christian explains the Central Railroad of New Jersey route is replicated from New Jersey to Bethlehem, then north to Ashley, Pennsylvania, near Wilkes-Barre.

The DuPont resident has been a club member for four years. “We have 65 members from all over: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia,” Christian says.

Visitors from as far away as Virginia came to walk as giants among the scaled-down landscapes as passenger and freight trains wove their way from station to station during the Nov. 30 event. Others dropped in from as far away as Nanticoke in the north and Old Bridge Township, New Jersey, in the east.

Impressed with the tour, Jerry Barlow and his 19-year-old son Tucker purchased some HO rolling stock from the gift shop for their home layout. The “newbies” to the hobby live in Lower Milford Township.

Most of the model buildings along the way are scratch-built to resemble actual structures that would have been seen in the area from 1950 to 1976. These landmarks were painstakingly recreated from vintage photographs. Many of the landscapes throughout the layout will look familiar to locals.

Model rail enthusiasts can watch the trains run from 1 – 5 p.m. Jan. 4, 11, 12 and 19. The museum opens its doors from 2-5 p.m. every third Sunday of the month during the rest of the year.

Information: 610-868-7101; lkvmodelrailroad.com/.