8/24/01
It all started a back in 1986 when a small group of model railroaders got together with a Scoutmaster that had four large corner modules that formed a 60 inch radius circle of HO gauge double track. Left over from an Explorer Scout project, he was glad to get them out of his basement. He moved on to other interests and willed them to the club. One of our members re-laid the track with 6 scale inches of super elevation and to this day, it's one of the highlights to observe a fast freight or passenger train as it lays into the graceful curves.
Another fellow, we'll politely call him Mr X, offered the free use of a lube-bay, the garage portion of the former service station that he used for his business. We set up shop there, added a couple straight modules to form an oval and were out of space, but it was a beginning.
After a few weeks of work, we found the new club facility with a Sheriffs padlock on it and Mr X had left town!. Months later, we would get the modules back and look for a new home. The general concept of modular model railroading is for each member to work on his module at home and then assemble them for special shows and activities. Unfortunately, in a sparsely populated area like Eastern Idaho, the opportunity for assembly would be very rare, so we sought more permanent quarters and found them and lost them --- until one day the Pocatello Mall, an older declining facility whose tenants were migrating to the "New Mall" across town, invited us to occupy an empty store. Their idea was "we'd rather have the lights on and something for folks to see than have a dark empty store". For about five years, our rent was simply the utility costs and we eventually occupied a nicely lighted and carpeted 30' x 80' store.
During this time, the Mall required us to be open to the public for a certain days and we had some railroad historians in our group. These two factors along with a growing desire to share our knowledge led us to re-direct our club efforts towards the preservation and presentation of railroad history in our area. We renamed and incorporated the club to include the historical interest and gained tax-exempt (501-c3) status from the IRS. PLUG: Donations will be gratefully accepted
The Mall continued to lose tenants, but it was on a prime location, so the Fred Meyer Stores, now part of Kroger Stores, bought it with the intention of razing and building a super store. We waited for the axe to fall, and it eventually did after about two years of uncertainty. During that two years we struggled with the problem of finding a new home for our 65 HO scale modules, N-gauge railroad, kitchen, meeting room, et al, and then one day the gods smiled on us as the Union Pacific Railroad granted us an extended lease on a mostly unused building known as the "Crew Dispatch" or building B59. The UPRR had been evolving with acquisitions and re-structuring, leaving this building near the Depot nearly unused. We will occupy about three-fourths of the 6000 square feet, including one room 50' x 58' without a single post or column.
The building is ideal for our purposes, suffering only in the fact that most of the rain and snow water that fell on the 6000 square foot roof ended up running down the inside of the walls. The roof has since been repaired financed jointly by the UPRR and our club.
We assembled the HO modules away from the running water walls to get trains running. Now a 'G' gauge layout is under construction in that area. The modular layout is generic, having no particular prototype theme in mind, although most modelers run UP equipment. In keeping with our name, members have been working on a recreation of the Pocatello roundhouse and engine servicing facility in 2001. Roundhouse tracks and garden tracks are installed and ballasted with real cinders and a few scale weeds. A functional turntable is in place awaiting a pony truss superstructure. Steel framework for the roundhouse walls and roof is 2/3 complete, awaiting the delivery of the rest of the steel. Eventually, a fueling facility will be built.
We have a great historical asset in one of our charter members; Harold Petersen, AKA "Pete" is the son of the famous railroad photographer, Arthur Petersen and he has the collection. We have shared just a few of these historical photos on this web site.
We also have developed a museum in one room that has many RR artifacts on display. As visitors tour the museum and layout, railroaders from the area have donated additional items for display.
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