The Model Railway Club

As mentioned last week, I was going to write about the model railway Club I visited in London. That was The Model Railway Club. They were founded in 1910. That is 102 years old. That is pretty impressive. Their Clubrooms are advertised as being open on Thursday nights. I happened to arrive in London at about 3:00pm on a Thursday. I was staying two streets over. Talk about lucky. I took my camera and headed out to knock on their door and this is what I saw.

 

The Front Door

 

They were a very hospitable bunch and welcomed me into their Clubrooms and showed me around. They had an American shunting layout called Putnam with an NCE Powercab running it, also a 7mm scale layout called Happisburgh Goods consisting of a few modules which was being worked on, and a 4mm layout called Centenary Park Road (I think?) that they guys were laying track on. But their largest layout by far that was setup was a 2mm scale layout called Copenhagen Fields. This layout looks like N scale, but consists of all hand laid track. The buildings were great. It was actually a model of the area nearby and its main road was Caledonian Road which is also the name of one of the stations. Here are some photos:-

For the curves of scene, the guys used brass strip which they bent in a machine they made.  very ingenious, and a lot quicker than hand laying 2mm scale track.

A view of the multi level layout from the front.

A scene that shows of some of the buildings.

A close up of some shops along Caledonian Road.

Rows of apartments.

Another view of the main street.

It all started with a scale model of the layout showing the various layers of track.

All the track was hand laid.  Not all points were working.  Some were just there for show.

A very nice piece of construction.  The local church.

Track at multiple levels and structures in the front and in the back, along with very nice scenery.

 

On the tour of the rooms the guys showed me a model of the 2nd ever S scale loco ever built.

The S scale loco.

 

They also showed me of all things a model of a local steam loco a PB15 also in S scale.

 

A PB15 in S Scale.

 

Their library was huge. It was housed in a large number of brown built cabinets in a separate room.  There were I think three guys cataloguing books.  I stayed and chatted for about and hour.  I was invited back with the family on the following Sunday as they were working on an exhibition layout prior to an exhibition the following Saturday, but I was out doing sightseeing with the family and could not get back there.  The visit to the Club certainly was an eye opener and very enjoyable.  Highly recommended.