National Model Railroad Association
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| Formation | 1935 |
|---|---|
| Type | Model Railroading |
| Headquarters | Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, United States |
| Location |
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Membership
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20,000+ |
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President
|
Charlie Getz |
|
Staff
|
4 |
| Website | http://www.nmra.org |
The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) is a non-profit organization for those involved in the hobby or business of model railroading. It was founded in the United States in 1935, and is also active in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. It was previously headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was based in Chattanooga, Tennessee next to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM) from 1982 to 2013 and has since relocated in Soddy Daisy.
The classifications listed below are from the A.A.R. Individual roads may use other designations. Illustrations show a typical member of the class detailed underneath the following a class description indicates a rare or obsolete type.
The best-known activity of the NMRA is the defining of standards, and advisory documents known as Recommended Practices (RP), for model railroad equipment. Many standards defined by the NMRA are widely followed by the industry and modellers, including their H0 scale track and wheel standards (S-3, S-4) and related RPs (RP2, 8, 10-15, and 25) and their Digital Command Control (DCC) standard set (S-9.1, S-9.2, and RP9.1.1 through RP9.3.2).
The RP25 wheel design in particular has been critical in ensuring the reliability and interoperability of US-prototype model railroad equipment, since practically every manufacturer of such equipment uses wheels conforming to the RP. This is in marked contrast to the British market, in which there is no accepted standard among manufacturers. In Europe, the Normen Europäischer Modelleisenbahnen (NEM)) standard is widely followed, but this is generally further away from prototype accuracy than NMRA standards, and the NEM wheel design is particularly so. This results in interoperability restrictions between European and American wheels and trackwork.
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