The Achievement Program (AP) is the NMRA’s educational program to help you learn the crafts and skills necessary in the hobby of model railroading. The AP challenges you with a set of requirements for demonstrating a superior level of skill in various aspects of our hobby. With the completion of each category, you are issued a certificate acknowledging your achievement. If you have questions about the Achievement Program or want to start on your first certificate, contact the division AP Coordinator, Earl Paine. Information about the Achievement Program, including requirements for each certificate, is available from the NMRA website. Don’t forget your fellow division members who have completed, or are working towards, a certificate. They are great resources. Check out the Honors Page for a list of Philadelphia Division Members who have earned Achievement Program certificates or a Golden Spike Award. If you have earned an AP certificate or Golden Spike Award and it not listed, please contact website maintenance. The NMRA Achievement Program can help build your modeling experience.
There are 11 categories in which a model railroader may demonstrate skills and recognition:
Master Builder: Motive Power – you know, engines, the things that pull the cars (railroad of course) from place to place
Master Builder: Cars – the things that get pulled from place to place and, in real life earn the money needed to keep the railroad in business
Master Builder: Structures – buildings – everything from the lowliest outbuilding to the loftiest skyscraper
Master Builder: Scenery – the stuff that your trains run over, under, around and through
Master Builder: Prototype Models – building a model of something that exists in the real world and actually looks like it
Model Railroad Engineer: Civil – track work–planning and installing it
Model Railroad Engineer: Electrical – using electricity to bring your model to life
Chief Dispatcher – this involves operating a model as it would be if it were a real, commercial enterprise and includes putting cars together to form trains and delivering them to their intended destinations
Association Official – serving in elected NMRA office(s) at the National and/or Regional organizations one of which must be at the national level
Association Volunteer – serving the association in either an elected, appointed or purely voluntary capacity at any level
Model Railroad Author – this award involves accumulating points based on how much you write (a page is about 1200 words) and where it is published.
