Connecticut Valley Model Railroad Club in Lebanon, NH


CCoffran

Active Member
The Connecticut Valley Model Railroad Club, Inc. is a non-profit association of rail fans and modelers in the Upper Valley. The club meets every Wednesday evening from 7PM to 9PM at our new home at the River Mill Complex, 85 Mechanic St. Lebanon, NH. The first Wednesday of every month is a business meeting. This is the best time for potential members and other interested members of the public to visit.


The award-winning N scale layout, a four piece sectional layout depicting a portion of the railroad through Crawford Notch, NH will be setup and displayed in our new home. The semi-permanent N Scale (1:160) layout depicting the line from White River Junction to Canaan began in the White River Junction firehouse had to be dismantled and stored. The Club members' HO scale modules are being moved from storage to the new location. We will continue setting them up for display at the Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Model Railroad Show in April and also our annual Christmas Show at the Hanover Inn, Hanover, NH the first weekend in December. The HO scale modules do not have a single theme, although there are modules depicting Lebanon, NH and other local railroad sites. All modules are built by club members and thus many of them reflect the specific interests of the builder. Most current modules focus on New England prototypes. Regional interests of the club members who model range from the Woodstock Railway to the Boston and Maine to the New England Central. In addition, some club members model the Lehigh Valley, the Pennsylvania, Conrail, CSX, the Atlantic & Yadkin Railway, and the "what if" Driscoll Rail. You can see shots of the various HO modules in the photo sections documenting the last few years' Club shows.


In addition to modeling interests, club members are interested in railroad preservation, railfanning, and rail history. Many members of CVMRR are also members of the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and are helping with the restoration of the former Boston & Maine locomotive #494 in White River Junction, VT. The area rail-oriented organizations, including CVMRR and the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, are looking always to promote railroading's past, present, and future.

http://cvrr.railfan.net/cvmrr/cvmr_story.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/cate...t-Valley-Model-Railroad-Club-274359952712806/
 
I picked up the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ smart phone and was messing around with some of the new camera settings. Here are some photos of areas on the clubs layout.

The black and white filter is different.
20190828_202618.jpg

20190828_202942.jpg

20190828_202911.jpg

The old depot in Lebanon, NH.
20190828_203148.jpg

Random modules.
20190828_203301.jpg

20190828_203343.jpg

20190828_203528.jpg
 
Excellent photos. Hard to tell what scale it is. Keep them coming.

Sure is a pain to lost a place for a permanent layout. We have an N scale group locally here in Montana who also set up in different locations for the public.

I feel fortunate that my club is in the basement of the old Northern Pacific depot in Livingston, MT which is now a railroad museum. The club is considered part of the museum and we pay no rent or utilities, but we do have the layout open to the public on certain operating days.

Keep the photos coming.
 
The layout is HO scale, the club is building a smaller and lighter N scale layout to take to shows. Parts of the HO layout are closing in on 30 years old, except for the car dealership the other photos are some of the oldest modules. It seems the clubs in this area mostly do modules to take to shows. We are fortunate to have a space to set up the layouts when not at shows. That wasn't always the case though, for a long time the club operated out of a storage box and built modules at members houses.
 
Sounds a bit like my club. It's been under construction for over 25 years, but luckily, has not had to move.


Club members didn't realize how bad the track was until they saw this. Toggle back to the beginning. Don't know why it starts at the end.
 
I like all the small details on your clubs layout, helps bring it to life. The hidden dinosaurs are fun. Can the public see those or they more for the members?
 
The dinosaurs can bee seen by the public. If you go to 2:50 in the video, there is a window to look under the mountain. There is also a circus scene in the loop but it can't be seen in the video.
A lot of the detailed scenes were done by the wife of one of the members. She is fantastic. I have tried to bribe her to come over and work on my layout but so far, no deal.

The club layout is fairly generic when it comes to the area modeled. The layout is in three rooms and no particular area was modeled with the exception of the town of Gardiner, MT. Using photos from the Museum of the Rockies, she scratch built numerous buildings including the log station. If you go to 11:25 in the video, it enters another room which is the town of Gardiner set in the 30's. She even scratch built the Roosevelt Arch which is the north entrance to Yellowstone Park. The Northern Pacific ran a train south from Livingston to Gardiner not only to take visitors to the park, but it also supplied the town with just about everything it needed to survive. The service was discontinued in the mid 50's.

Here is a link to a post I made on the town of Gardiner with photos of the layout and photos used to make the scene.

http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/...-on-the-livingston-model-railroad-club.30340/
 



Back
Top