If You're Vacationing in the Ft. Myers, FL Area ...

[P5se Camelback]

Both tetters and green_elite_cab have written about the model railroad clubs to which they belong. I figured that I will take a few moments and extend an open invitation to all of our Big Blue members who may be thinking about heading to Florida for vacation ...

For anyone vacationing in the Ft. Myers, Florida area ...

The Scale Rails of Southwest Florida Model Railroad Club is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 AM until 2 PM. We welcome visitors and enjoy the opportunity to talk about model railroading in general and our relatively large club layout in particular and there will always be someone happy to give visitors a personal layout tour.



We also have a Modular N scale layout, currently set up in a separate room, which does travel to train shows …




… as well as an HO layout with Thomas the Tank Engine and other brightly colored trains for the enjoyment of the younger visitors who sometimes arrive with Mom and Dad …



A couple of our members host a once monthly evening gathering at “The Depot” for Scouts, many of whom earn their Model Railroading Merit Badge through the program at the Club. One program had Cub Scouts build modules …




The Scale Rails Club is a 100% NMRA Club; all members are first NMRA members. The NMRA’s Achievement Program is alive and well at Scale Rails, with many members working towards one Achievement Award or another. Many of the Clubs members have participated as clinic presenters at NMRA-sanctioned events. Each spring, our members put on a series of clinics, open to the public, at The Depot. Each Saturday morning from January through April, there is a clinic presented on such diverse topics as proper soldering of electrical connections, building trees, locomotive weathering and scratch-building structures in styrene. We are blessed with a talented group of modelers, quite a few of whom are “snowbirds,” escaping the cold winter weather for the winter, only to “fly back up North” after Easter.

On our layout, every attempt is being made to model locations as they actually are in the prototype world. Of course, there is some selective compression used, but for major “signature scenes,” e.g., the downtown business district of Victorville, CA, a small group of modelers is working directly from photographs to "get it right." The San Bernardino Santa Fe Depot, built by one of two of the Club’s NMRA Master Model Railroaders is a very large and impressive structure, build without the benefit of selective compression over a two year period.

Santa Fe’s San Bernardino Depot on Division 1 (Upper Level)




We model the time period 1950 to 1969, and trains can be seen pulled by both big Santa Fe steam and diesels from several roads. Division 1 (Santa Fe and Union Pacific) trackage runs (on the upper level) between San Bernardino and Victorville, California through the high desert.

"The Joint Line" (Denver, Rio Grande and Western, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Union Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe) runs between Denver and Pueblo, Colorado on the lower level.


The Rock Island enters the modeled portion of the route from hidden staging just east of Colorado Springs and has an interchange point there.

Between Colorado Springs and an area west of Castle Rock you will find the narrow gauge trackage. The slim gauge enthusiasts among us are always busy making improvements to their part of the facility, whether it be adding a new mine and re-aligning trackage to service it or adding a turntable at their eastern terminus near Colorado Springs.

The two levels are connected by a helix, which is lined with optical sensors that light LEDs on a fascia-mounted board indicating “progress towards Victorville, CA or Pueblo, CO, both cities existing as staging tracks on the very bottom or third level accessed by the helix. The board with the route diagram and the string of LEDs indicating the cities along the route is a helpful tool when during an operation session, you might be the engineer on Train #1, “The Royal Gorge,” leaving Chicago at 5:00 AM on it’s trip west, and you need to know where your train is and when to expect to see it appear on the modeled portion of the route just east of Pueblo, CO, on the lower level. Once it appears, the first stop is Pueblo and then on to Denver, arriving at noon, and then departing at 12:45 PM for the trip back east to Chicago as Train #2. Trains bound for San Bernardino come off the helix from staging just east of Victorville for their trip west.

We have just recently initiated an operations plan utilizing twenty-two passenger trains, identified by their prototype name and number, and running according to the prototype's schedule against a 10:1 fast clock. It can get pretty interesting! Jobs are assigned for Dispatcher (2), Tower Operators (4), Yard Masters (up to 4) and engineers (one for each passenger train.) A good time is generally had by all, and a record of hours spent at each job is kept to apply to the appropriate Achievement Award.

A group of several members have now volunteered to begin development of a similar operating scheme for freight service, which will be "folded into" the new passenger service schedule next Fall, after any unforeseen glitches have been ironed out of the passenger schedule.

Control on the layout is totally Digitrax utilizing a combination of UT4R and DT402R throttles. Power to the layout is handled by a DSC 100 and three DB 100s. All of the sensing and Block occupancy circuitry and “indication boards” have been developed by our resident Electrical Engineer. He is behind all things electronic and is always developing new “high-tech circuitry” to provide some additional beneficial nuance to the operation of the layout, like the new “Short Circuit Location Indicator Boards” now mounted at the Pueblo, CO and Castle Rock, CO Tower Operator positions.

Motive power and rolling stock used on the layout is a combination of Club-Owned and “Long Term Leased” equipment owned by individual members. All rolling stock whether Club-Owned or “Leased” must conform to NMRA standards and have metal wheels. Checking to insure Conformance to Standards as well as insuring clean metal wheel treads has become pretty much a full-time job for one of our dedicated members. He also takes care of “Bad Order” cars and maintains the rolling stock roster listing (now at several hundred cars.)

There are lots of pictures on the club's Web site, many taken during benchwork construction, track laying and wiring, up to the current state of the layout ... starting with the bare room … take a look … and while you’re at it, click on the “Video Gallery” button on the club web site.

... and should you find yourself in the Ft. Myers, Florida vicinity, stop in for a warm welcome and the “Cooke’s Tour” of our Layout!

Comments welcome!