The Club Room

Be a part of the Model Rail community – get involved today. E-mail: theclubroom@bauermedia.co.uk

The section that’s all about you, showcasing your work and your letters. Includes Exhibition Diary.

The Model Railway Club has the distinction of being the oldest of its kind in the world, being founded in December 1910. We were delighted when Guinness World Records gave us a certificate confirming this! The club is very fortunate to have its own premises, a ten-minute walk from King’s Cross station, at Keen House, named after one of our earliest members and long-time chairman Geoffrey Keen. The building opened in 1959 and contains a main meeting room with its own refreshment area, including a small licensed bar, as well as the extensive MRC library and several rooms where we build club layouts. The club’s main function, as it always has been, is as a place to develop and promote model railways and everything to do with them for its 250 members. Over the years, many of its members have been famous names, such as W.J. Bassett-lowke, Peter Denny (‘Buckingham’), Norman Eagles (‘Sherwood Section’) and Cyril Freezer. Surprisingly, it was only in the late 1960s that the club started building its own layouts, but many have been produced since then. Currently we have the following, with others in development: ‘Copenhagen Fields’, (2mm finescale, set north of King’s Cross in the 1920s-1930s); ‘Happisburgh Goods’, (‘O’ gauge, set in East Anglia in the late 1950s); ‘Lacey Dale’, (‘N’ gauge, set on the Midland line through the Peak District); ‘Empire Mill’, (‘EM’ gauge; ‘Putnam Division’, ‘HO’ scale, set in the north-eastern USA); ‘Ingatestone’, (‘OO’ gauge, modern image) and ‘Calshot Road’, (‘OO’, by our Young MRC sub-group). Historically, the club has organised ‘The Easter Show’ which was held for many years in Central Hall, Westminster. During the 1980s and 1990s, the venue changed and eventually became unfeasible in that form. These days the club has a major involvement with the London Festival of Railway Modelling, held each March at Alexandra Palace, in North London. The main club night is held on a Thursday evening from 7pm, at Keen House, and visitors are very welcome. On these evenings, one of our layouts is usually in operation, the multi-gauge test tracks are available for members to test-run (or simply show off) their new models, be it something they have made from a kit or from scratch, or the latest ready-to-run offering. The library is opened and members can browse or borrow from around 4,000 volumes. Many members, however, just like to chat over a cup of tea or a pint. The various layout groups generally meet at convenient times during the rest of the week – there is modelling activity most days at Keen House. During the autumn and winter months, on the second Thursday of the month, there are lectures, often presented by some of the leading lights from both the full-sized and model railway world, and we have a monthly afternoon meeting for those who live further away or cannot travel in the evening. We have a successful children’s section: the Young MRC (YMRC), which meets monthly on Saturday mornings – its emphasis is on getting the young members to build something themselves, which we hope will spark a lifetime interest in the hobby. It has already inspired some other clubs to set up their own versions. Our membership costs £60 a year for those living and working in the London area, with discounts for those further afield. The MRC has a history that now spans more than a century and we hope to continue long into the future. If you are near London’s King’s Cross on a Thursday evening, please come and see us. Address: Keen House, 4 Calshot Street, London N1 9DA Web: www.themodelrailwayclub.org