Green Country Model Railroaders' Association

Just got back from visiting the model railroad club layout that Dale Baker and his son belong to. There was about seven members there working on the layout and I took 21 photos I thought you would like to see.

Joe

 

Thanks Joe, I like the trackwork but really like the structures. Lots of good ideas there to copy

Sumner

 

Hi Joe,

Thanks for coming by and thank you for posting pictures of the club layout. This build was necessitated by the fact that we lost our home in January 2019. We located our present address in late summer last year. We moved in on the first of October 2019. We did not get our benchwork up until about April of this year. We decided to go with prebuilt modules in case we ever have to move again. The old layout was put together using old modules from the original GCMRA traveling layout and were in the range of 30 plus years old. Additions to the layout over time made it impossible to move. We dismantled all we could save and put into storage.

once we located a home, we determined that the club did not want to loose a complete railroad again and we invested in the KamKonnect prebuilt modules to fit the smaller space we had. We salvaged what we could of the old layout in the way of track, turnouts and electronics. We repurposed all we could and supplemented with new. This layout has been operational now for about 3 months and we have started Operations Sessions now for the last 2 months. We operate it twice a month, once on a weekend session and once on a mid-week evening. We have the industries named and all have spurs for ops. We are now working on scenery.

GCMRA is open to the public twice a week on Saturday mornings and Tuesday mornings. We will do specials when the need arises. We have also built and are finishing a new smaller traveling layout for train shows.

The railroad represents a freelanced bridge line located in Oklahoma and the time frame is the 60’s to 70’s. We are heavy on switching activities and pretty much operate as TO/TT Ops.

We currently have about 25 members and are always looking for more. If anyone in the area wishes to visit, let me know by PM an I will provide directions.

Joe, again thank you for putting up your pictures!

Come visit us again,
Dale

 

Thank you Dale for inviting me, I really enjoyed the visit !!! You guys have done a lot since my first visit, great layout.

Joe

 

Hi Tom,

The KamKonnect modules are all wood with a center ply sheet and frame around it. The ends are downed on one end to fit holes on the adjoining module. The also have a half inch foam insert that goes on them that is recessed in the fram so the top is all the same elevation. We opted to supply our own legs and modified the ones from our old traveling layout to fit. They are stable, light weight and very well made. I cannot say enough good things about them. The whole club is very happy with them. Which is saying a lot when you get a couple dozen old geezers to agree! The owner worked with us directly on our needs and we had a couple of special made one in the bunch but most are stock sizes. There is a cam lock in the center of one end of the module that you rotate with a hex key and it locks on to a receiver in the next module.

we purposely went the module route because we do not want to loose years of work again should we have to move. It was very disheartening to have to see years of work on out old layout just go into the dumpster because it would not be able to be moved.

Take care Buddy!
Dale