Celebrating National Model Railroad Month

Published 6:10 am Saturday, November 27, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Dawn Burleigh

The sounds of trains running the tracks filled the air at the annual Southeast Texas Model Railroad Club’s Open House of Model Railroad Displays on Friday. For those who missed it on Friday, the event continues on from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Grace Lutheran Church, located at 2300 Eddleman Road in Orange. Admission is free.

The first mass market model train sets were invented by a German company called Marklin in 1891, and by the early 1950s model trains were the number one most popular toy for boys in the United States, according to https://exactrail.com/

Today There are over half a million model train collectors in the US and Canada.

Come enjoy the magical world of miniature trains, with wonderful scenery and track plans.  See the buildings and towns as the trains run through them.  There will be both passenger and freight trains running on all the layouts; bring the kids to see the LEGO Train or Thomas the Tank Engine.

The annual open house began in 2008 with two local participating model railroad clubs.

There are two types of elements to the layouts – Prototypical and Scratch Built.

Prototypical is like the real thing, according to Gulley in a previously published Orange Leader article.

Scratch built is self-designed and created.

Each model railroad club has it’s own requirements for layouts and scale size of the model trains.

The Southeast Texas Model Railroad Club have layouts for an HO and an N scale, the two most popular sizes in model trains.

The Southeast Texas Model Railroad Club meets on Monday nights at 7 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church for anyone interested in joining the club.

For more details or directions, contact George Bohn at 409-313-1991 or 409-882-9191.You can also contact Mike Gulley at 409-670-5349.   Visit us on our website, www.setmrc.com.