SA&N planning and purpose

	The San Antonio Model Railroad Association (SAMRA) constructed the Bob Clarke Rail Heritage Museum to house its most popular feature, The San Antonio & Northern Railroad (SA&N).
	The SA&N is an 80’ x 40’ operational HO scale model railroad designed both for education and fun. Its educational mission is to show visitors how our Texas Railroads interacted with the key Texas industries and products up to the mid 20^th Century
	Because of the huge size of real railroads (and their customer’s facilities) “Operational Miniature Models” are ideally suited to both show the railroads with the industries they served and to actually demonstrate how railroads served as the primary transportation and “door to door” delivery vehicle for passengers and products prior to the development of intercity trucking and the construction of interstate highways in the 1960s.
	The SA&N is more than a static display. “Operating Sessions” allow visitors to run trains to destinations along the railway, where they pick up and deliver loads to industries in exactly the same way the actual railroads served their customers. (Note: Operating session participation is by appointment only, so please contact the museum staff in advance of your visit)
	SAMRA members research and realistically recreate “HO scale” (87 real feet reduced to 1 foot) miniatures of trains, industries, structures, and scenes that existed between San Antonio and Fort Worth Texas to serve Texas industries including; Oil, Cotton, Grain, Lumber, Cattle, Wool & Mohair, Quarry & Cement, Chemical and more.
	Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Missouri Kansas & Texas, Santa Fe, and other Texas railroads are featured while SAMRAs fictitious SA&N shows rail service and equipment that could not be seen if a single prototype were modeled—in essence, the SA&N is a composite representation of many of the railroads that served Texas in the 1950’s.