![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTorontoist recently had an entertaining feature, "Trainspotting with the Model Railroad Club of Toronto", written by Joshua Sherman with photos by Josh Allsopp, looking at a model railroad club of note in Toronto.
It's a great feature. It also reminded me of some video I took during Doors Open visit to the Toronto Railway Museum, of two model trains going about their paces.
A fleet of 1:48-scale model trains chugs along 4,000 winding feet of miniature rail on Saturday in the basement of 11 Curity Avenue, a nondescript building in an industrial pocket of Toronto’s east end.
Crossing bells ring, but the roughly two hundred who trek here for the Model Railroad Club of Toronto’s public show on this hazy afternoon can ignore the warning: a replica arching steel bridge carries freight and tiny plastic passengers safely overhead.
This is the first time the club, which dates back to 1938, has opened its doors like this since it moved here from Liberty Village three years ago, Brian Bentley, a member since 1961, tells Torontoist. “This is very much an under-construction show,” he adds, standing near a 50s-era check-in booth salvaged from Union Station and now used to collect admissions.
Following the move in summer 2013, Bentley and crew have been working away on their new diorama every Wednesday and Saturday evening from around 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. It’s a sprawling setup that takes up much of the 3,800-square-foot space.
A jagged mountain-scape, the work of the late Borden Lilley—one of the club’s co-founders—made the move here. So has his meticulously detailed rail yard. Lilley’s daughter Merla McMurray was on hand and remembers these well. “This was his relaxation,” she says.
It's a great feature. It also reminded me of some video I took during Doors Open visit to the Toronto Railway Museum, of two model trains going about their paces.
