The museum has an excellent collection of books about mostly western railroads and a library of videos that can be checked out by members.

The large John Armstrong designed HO layout was built depicting the SP route from the SF Bay Area to Donner Summit and Reno / Sparks. The track plan was featured in the March 1998 issue of Model Railroader. The SLHRS was one of the first clubs to convert its HO layout to DCC. 

HO is the most popular model railroading scale.  The SLHRS layout was designed by the late John Armstrong who is famous within the model railroading community as being the “Dean of Track Planning.”  The SLHRS track plan was published by him in the March 1998 issue of Model Railroader magazine.  

The SLHRS layout is one of the largest HO model railroads in the SF Bay Area.  Construction began in 1992 and is mostly completed.  The display is constantly being maintained, upgraded, and modernized.  

The layout depicts the Southern Pacific Railroad route from the San Francisco Bay to Reno and Sparks, Nevada.  Visitors familiar with the railroad route between the Bay Area and Reno will recognize many of the modeled locations.  Some of the modeled locations include the ferry operations at Alameda, the industrial areas of Oleum and Selby, the Sierra foothills, yard operations at Roseville, the SP bridge at Long Ravine and numerous wood Sierra Mountain snow sheds.