| North
County
Model Railroad
Society |
 |
Cyrus Grimshaw, John
King and Jeff Warner formed the club in January 1990. The three of them had been
visitors at Bob Bethel's American Hobby Supply in San
Marcos asking whether there was a train club in
the area that they could join.
Bob's answer was that none existed, so why not
start one? He put them in touch with one another and it was quickly decide that
a modular approach would be the best way to go since modules would be easy to
assemble, disassemble, move, and store.
Displays were arranged in 1990-1991 at the
Carlsbad Train Station, American Hobby in San
Marcos, Short Lines Junction (now Reed's) in Escondido,
Pacific Southwest Region Convention in San
Bernardino, and the Great
American Train Show in San Diego.
Additional members were recruited and by 1991 the club was ready to rent a
small storefront to allow permanent set-up of the modules and to serve as a
meeting place for the members.
The first location was at 817
San Marcos Boulevard, only two
doors away from American Hobby Supply. There was room for about a dozen modules
in the rear and a small meeting area in front. That front space soon disappeared
when two N-Scale modelers asked for module space and got quick approval for it.
By 1992 the number of members had increased to where
additional space would be required. Thanks to Dan Reid, one of the club
members, we moved into new quarters at 2642
Oceanside Boulevard and were able
to expand to almost 1800 square feet of floor space. We doubled the size of the
N-Scale layout and split the HO-Scale into Eastern and Western Divisions. 1994
brought about the temporary loss of the Oceanside
Boulevard location, and all
modules were placed in storage while a search went on for a new home.
Fortunately, Cy
Grimshaw made contact with the Palm
Tree
Plaza
management and an agreement was reached on one of the storefronts at the corner
of South Melrose
and Cannon Road
in Oceanside.
The club moved into Suite
2H in the spring of 1994 and remained in the
Plaza until January of 2001. The management was very supportive
of the club and while we had to move into different suites over the years, we
never lost a space until January 2001. To complicate our move, we even put up
an N-Scale layout display at the Dec. 2000 Great American Train Show.
We were again able to locate an agreeable
management and moved into 1360
East Mission Road
in Jan. 2001. We struggled for awhile with no power while an electrical panel
was modified to provide 110 volt power and in April 2001 had a "Grand
Reopening" with almost 400 plus visitors over a weekend. The club was
again off and running. In 2002, the club voted to redo the HO-Scale layout to
emphasize railroad-type operation and construction of all-new modules and
control systems began.
We are fortunate to receive this copy of the
NCMRS history written
by Cy Grimshaw.
Kudos to Leo
Valley
for retrieving this document from club archives