NMRC,
The Nottawasaga Model Railroad Club,
Meets In Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

There are photos and mentions of the Nottawasaga Model Railroad Club (NMRC) and its members scattered throughout this website. That's because I'm a member and lots of what I write about involves the goings-on at the NMRC club.

I thought it would be advisable to give the club its own page so I can use it as a pointer to help you find information on my site that may be of use to you.

We meet Monday evenings between 7 and 10 pm in a portable building behind the United Church on Golf Course Road on the eastern side of Wasaga Beach. Wasaga Beach is about 2 hours north of Toronto, Canada on the shores of Georgian Bay. To orient you, it's about 45 minutes west of Barrie, Ontario from the major 400 highway.

We currently (September, 2011) continue to have 15 active members. The Club builds and owns a modular layout that we take to train shows throughout central Ontario. The layout, when set up, is a 26 foot long by 5 foot wide peninsula that widens to 6 feet at both ends to allow the track to curve back. At the clubhouse we are also building additional modules to free-mo standards that splice into the midpoint of the layout. Thus far we have not taken the free-mo units "on the road". This month we completed upgrading the layout's wiring for DCC Digitrax to be compatible with free-mo standards. We'll be "beta" testing the DCC at the Barrie Train Show in a few weeks.

A note about DCC

Most of our members were unfamiliar with DCC when we decided to convert from DC. We ran some clinics in 2010 about installing decoders in locomotives. These were non-sound decoders and we used a few of the club's old engines for demonstration. Martin Alborough, who set up and runs the NMRC website has written a very good layman's explanation of how DCC works. Go to the club's website to see it.

Below are listed some of the pages where you'll find more information about the NMRC layout. The layout also appears in a few of the videos taken at Barrie, Brampton and the Midland train shows. I'll post more videos here in the future. Stay tuned by subscribing to my RSS feed so you are alerted when there's something new here.

Like most clubs, we're always interested in new members. If you live in the region and would like to learn more, send me an email from my comments page.

NMRC display at the
2009 Barrie Train Show

Here are a few photos that appear on other pages. New photos of the NMRC layout will be posted on this page in future.

*TH&B freight cars passing*

*CP freight on the mainline*

Here's the schematic of the current permanent layout that has more modules than the ones we take to the train shows.

*Club layout schematic (not to scale)*

New modules under construction (September, 2011)

Here are some photos of the new free-mo modules that connect to the current travelling layout. Basic track and wiring have been completed but the Digitrax connections have not been installed. Trains can run through both the upper and lower tracks. The lower inside mainline dead-ends because the center modules have not been started. The carriers have been built, track designed and now being laid. Discussion is ongoing about industries. Backdrops for the new center modules are some of this winter's projects.

Handlaid code 83 track on the upper level.
Turnouts built with Fast Track jigs.

*Temporary Cargill industry on upper level siding*

The following photo shows the left hand connecting module. There's a road by a farm and a scratchbuilt rural highway bridge.

*A rural scene on upper level with returning mainline below.*

The right hand connecting curves on both levels.
The joint is visible.
Circuit board ties help keep the track aligned.

There was very little room for scenery so the wall works to separate the scenes. Gary Robinson made the walls between the upper and lower trackwork by carving lines in drywall compound on a masonite backing sheet. It was stained with India ink and alcohol. The upper bridgework is actually made from a curtain rod channel overlaid with balsa wood "V" supports and painted black. Sidings to left and right pass underneath to act as future staging tracks. The top lip overhangs the bottom slightly, hence the need for some visual trickery.

*The drywall wall with Woodland Scenic clumps glued on as vines*

The following photo shows the effective use of the wall and bridge side to visually separate the upper and lower trackwork.

*The wall and bridge side separating the levels.*

Here's a short video shot at the Barrie Train Show, February 2010, featuring lots of steam and diesels and Brad's CN snowplow. This was the first time we'd used DCC since converting the layout from DC and installing Digitrax. Most members brought a couple of engines to run on the layout. We'd never had so many going at the same time now that there were no more block toggles to throw. We could have used a dispatcher! We like to let children switch cars on the inside trackage while our members run trains on the outside main. We were a little concerned that youngsters would have trouble running trains with DCC but they picked it up right away, even a 4-year old! It's the older guys that are slow to learn. Need to play more video games or practice on a Wii! In the background you can hear some of our members teaching the kids how to switch the cars. You should have seen the smiles.

The club now has its own website thanks to the efforts of club member Martin Alborough. For those who are interested, go to Nottawasaga Model Railroad club.

Club Hosts Operations Session

On June 25, 2011, the Club hosted members of the Canadian Association of Railway Modellers (CARM), Central Ontario Chapter, for an operations session on the Club's HO layout.

Gord MacBride is completing switching moves while Les Mavor and Robert Sparkes
wait for clearance to proceed into town with their trains.
NMRC members acted as helpers. Fortunately, Martin Alborough had come to the clubhouse earlier in the day to put signs at all industries and spurs.
Several of the completed modules used at train shows are in the background.
The tracks in the foreground curve onto the semi-completed free-mo modules.

The NMRC members, some of whom are also CARM members, guided the guests through an operations session. Martin Alborough has adapted the typical 4-cycle car cards into a fixed cycle (instead of random). This allows quick set-up at shows because all car movements are predestined. Running four freights kept everyone on their toes as they tried to keep out of the way of each other! Guest Engineers were Gord MacBride, Les Mavor, Bill Osborne and Robert Sparkes with NMRC members acting as brakemen/conductors to plan and execute the switching moves at the industries. It took about 3 hours to complete the session. Guests were invited to bring their own DCC-equipped locomotives. The Club supplied the Digitrax controllers. Engineers were given printed switchlists and a schematic of the railroad.

Here are some photos CARM member Robert Sparkes took during the session.