Old Colony Model Railroad Club
& Technical Society
The Club & layout; Then & Now
The Old Colony Model Railroad club of 770 Broadway Raynham, Massachusetts was founded by, two still active members in February of 1997. We came together to form a model railroad club, where members could be free to run their own equipment in whatever time period they preferred. The room we rent in the old Raynham Barrel Factory was the former site of a furniture store, so there was plenty of space to set up the layout in our 50’ by 50’ suite. When we enrolled enough members to start the layout, we set out with some simple rules, and operate in HO scale. When we voted on what railroad to model, the choice was obvious, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in the time period post war era. Many of our members remember this road from their childhood. In this time period we can run steam and diesel locomotive power, however members can run their own non-specific equipment any time we are not engaged in a group operating session. We stress Kadee couplers and metal wheelsets on all locomotives and rolling stock. The layout has gone through many changes, we finally decided on our current layout, which was derived from a drawing given to us from another model railroad club. We have made some design changes to fit our layout room. We started with open grid bench work and cookie-cut plywood sub-roadbed. Our rail is mostly Atlas code 83 track and switches on cork and vinyl roadbed, there is code 100 in the staging yard. Our minimum curve is 34” radius on the mainline, and 25” radius on the branch line. The layout features a double track mainline running between New Haven and Providence, the Shoreline route. There is also a lengthy branch line modeled after the Air Line in Connecticut, and it is dedicated to long time modeler John Allen. The staging area features the yards of Maybrook and Boston. At this time we have about 20 percent of the scenery finished, and the track plan is 95% completed. There are some finished scenes with mischievous and humorous designs to look for. We are operating with approximately 14 members. Our membership experience ranges from beginner to avid and published modelers. In 2008 we changed the layout from analog DC system to DCC (digital command control). We currently run the NCE (North Coast Engineering) DCC system. There is still much to model on the layout. We have been looking into a new signal system, with better block control. The design and scenery members are still working on many areas.
The layout is open to the public any time there are members on site, with the exception of the first Wednesday of every month, our business meeting. We meet primarily on Wednesday evenings, and Saturday afternoons. If you are interested in becoming a member, please see our application on this site, and contact one of the officers for more information. Every year we host a Model Railroad Show in September, please look for the place and date on this website. Hope to see ya.