1/64 Scale Model Trains

Founded 1948

Welcome to the Bristol S Gauge Railroaders!

The Bristol S Gauge Railroaders are dedicated to S scale (1/64 scale) model railroading. Formed in 1948, we believe we are the longest running S scale club in America! We are located in Eastern Massachusetts, and also have members in Southern Maine and New Hampshire.

Members are interested in most branches of S scale, including, but not limited to, Scale, Narrow Gauge (Sn3 and Sn2), Hi-Rail, and American Flyer operating and collecting. Our major goals are to learn from each other and have fun doing it.

New Members are Welcome! We are anxious to share the fun of building and operating S scale trains and layouts, as well as collecting trains and models. There is a Membership Application to join us, or if you have any questions about the club, or want to get a message to any member, please email me at a1traindude@verizon.net

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Club Meeting - Sept 17, 2022
September is the start of our Club calendar year and typically we kick it off with a meeting at Tommy and Helen Robichaud's house. This year we had 32 people attending!
Members of the Pioneer Valley and the Connecticut S-Gauge clubs were invited. Five people came out to join us. Pioneer Club members Steve Allen and George Reneris gave us a "Show and Tell" describing their recent projects.
Steve Allen presented his flat car with boxed Vermont marble that was shipped for the Tomb of the Unknown soldier in Arlington Cemetary, Washington. Steve also built a Clarksburg Vol Fire dept. building in memory of our Club member, Bill Clark.
George Reneris explained the animation he built for a flat car with jug band moving and playing instruments to two tunes, one is Beverly Hillbillies theme song. Another George creation shown was a flat car with a 1958 Ford Skyliner convertible, showing moving hardtop folding back inside trunk with Ford promotional sound bytes and bright lights!

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2022 UPDATE!

At this time, we have approximately 20 pairs of Moxie Tank Cars left available, for immediate delivery. If interested, we urge you to order ASAP, before they are all sold out!

Click the Moxie Tank Order Form to place your order NOW!

To commemorate the 2018 NASG Convention held in Boxborough, Massachusetts, the Bristol-S-Gauge host club offered this exclusive S-Scale America tank car decorated with the MOXIE logo of the Moxie Nerve Food Company, originally located in Lowell, MA and Union, ME. This is the perfect complement to our 2008 MOXIE wood-sided reefer convention cars! Although not totally accurate to the prototype, a similar pair of actual MOXIE tank cars did exist!

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Greenberg Train Show, held March 26-27, 2022 at the Shriners Auditorium, included our layout in a new location. There was very good participation by Club members and several brought in some engines from home to run during the show. We were able to make some needed repairs before (and a little bit during) the show. The camera setup continues to draw the attention of young and old alike. The show overall seemed to have very good attendance and we were fortunate to have good weather for setup and teardown.

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Bristol S-Gauge club attends Amherst train Show - 2022

On Friday January 28th thru Sunday January 30th, 2022 the Bristol Club's train layout was on display at the Amherst Model Train show. Friday setup went well as we had 5 Bristol members - Dale, Tommy, Tom Fuller, Helen, Don Haiges and were joined by by Dennis Carouso-CC, Paul Krause-Connecticut Club(CC), Gene Maas (Pioneer Club), Jim Daniels-(Pioneer Club) and Dick Kramer (Bristol and CC member). Help from these two other S-Gauge clubs was greatly appreciated. It made set up and teardown a lot lighter; sharing the work across all these people.

The Blizzard of 2022 arrived late Friday and all day Saturday. It largely affected the eastern part of the state were most of our club members live. We had a skeleton crew of 4 Bristol members on Saturday - Tom Fuller, Helen Robichaud, Don Haiges and Tommy Robichaud and support from Paul Krause and Jim Daniels.

Dick Kramer came back on Sunday to man the NASG table all day. Bristol members Bill Chase, John Korajczyk, Dale and Don Hazensahl and new member Leo Liias assisted the aforementioned skelton crew along with support from Jim Daniels (PVC), Paul Krause (CC), Robert Jordan (CC), Gene Maas (Pioneer) and John Robertson (CC) for Sunday. This large group also helped teardown and pack the layout. These members from the two other S-Gauge clubs were careful in packing and very good at taking guidance from Bristol members about our packing process. In a little under 2 hours we had the modules on the rack shelves with just the boxes and other materials to process on their respective racks.

We estimated about 30% of vendors did not appear at the show. The Amherst show reported low Saturday attendance of 1200 attendees which as a huge difference from past years where we saw about 10,000 attendees each day. On Sunday Amherst reported 4725 attendees. Photos from the event can be seen by selecting the Media tab, Photos and choosing Amherst 2022 Show folder.

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Our Bristol Club Picnic was hosted by Dale Hazenhasal and Dawn Silva on June 26, 2021. It was a great time catching up with everyone we haven't seen for so long due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our Club President, Tommy, with his orange reflector vest on; guided everyone to parking on the lawn as requested by our hosts. Then he expertly handled all the grilling, amidst a bit of smoke!

There were lots of great picnic choices, from ribs to pulled pork, hamburgers and hotdogs as well as variety of side dishes and several dessert choices. One special dessert choice was a Wedding Anniversary Cake for John and Pat Ciarleglio that had a colorful train decoration. Also since Tom and Jan Fuller's Wedding Anniversary was the next day; they were asked to cut a section of the cake as well.

Thanks very much to our hosts for this wonderful event. To see photos of the day, please click here or go to the Media selection and choose Photos.

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A Sad Note. On January 20, 2021 Bill Clark, a valued and well respected member of our club, passed away due to pancreatic cancer.

Bill had been a part of the Bristol club since 1996. His wealth of technical knowledge, his eagerness to try new methods, positive attitude, enthusiasm and interest in so many aspects of the hobby made it fun for everyone around him.

Soon after he joined the club, he became a pioneer in helping the club utilize DCC technology and assisted club members with DCC locomotive installations and repairs. He became our go-to technical expert and worked with many club members on their home layouts. His help on our last three NASG Conventions and committees was exceptional. He also became our Club Webmaster. Bill was a regular supporter at nearly all of our club train shows. We will fondly remember him sitting in his “director’s chair” inside the corner of our Club Layout during train shows as he made sure that things were running smoothly!

Bill was one of those club members who was really at the very heart of the club. His warm personality generated a positive attitude in every person he met. Bill encouraged people to join our club to learn and share various aspects of S-Gauge railroading.

Bill will never be apart from us; his fellow members of the Bristol S-Gauge Railroaders Club. We will all miss him greatly.

Creating an Animated Excavator

John Fucile was asked to create an animation of an excavator digging on our club modular layout. He did, and the results were outstanding:

Operating Backhoe on Club Layout, January 2016

Several people have asked how John created the animation, and he has graciously documented the process with photos and plans. Click here for the document.

Photos from Old Website

Here are the Archived Photos from the old website. They include pictures from 2000-2016.

Model Railroad Teardown

Don Haiges Layout: RIP. As we get older it's a blessing that the Lord gives us good friends to tell us to do things to which we are oblivious. So to my good friend Bill Morris, also a train guy, thanks for telling me to have my layout photographed before I tore it down. That totally escaped me. Also to my good friend Danny Oh, the videographer: Danny I thank you for taking the time to do this for me, what a great job. And finally to my good friend Craig Lentz, and also a college classmate, who got me back into trains about 10 or so years ago. He was the wiser, he sold all his trains.

Operating Session at Tommy's

A couple of friends from the Pioneer Valley S Gaugers, Steve Allen and George Reneris, dropped by the CGLR for an operating session. Tommy Robichaud acted as dispatcher and Helen Lenart and Bill Clark joined Steve and George as engineers. Check out the video above. We all had a great time!

1997 West Springfield Train Show

This is a video of the Bristol Club layout at the 1997 West Springfield Train Show. Bill Boucher brought his scratch built circus train to run on our layout. Video of his circus train starts at 2:06.

Photos from Club Members!

Photographs are one of the best ways to bring us together, and to liven up our web site! I'm always happy to post pictures if you send them to me, a1traindude@verizon.net. In addition, all club members have the ability to post pictures directly into member albums.

Here's how to do it:

1. Login to website (Only members can post pictures).
2. Click the down arrow next to your name (at the top of the Home page), select Profile.
3. Click Photo Albums under Website.
4. On the Photo Album Manager page, click Add Photo Album.
5. Fill out Album name, select availability, add description if desired. Click Save.
6. Click the pencil icon.
7. Click Add Multiple Photos (other options are explained, but this is the most useful).
8. Click Select Files to browse for photos on your PC.
9. Add titles, photographer, data taken if desired. Click Save.

And your album should be there. Give it a try, see what you think.

Photos will display at a maximum of 1024 pixels. You can upload them at full size, however, and the viewer will be able to download the high resolution original. There is no need to reduce the size of your photos, bigger is better!

Our club is pretty spread out geographically, and pictures are a great way to keep us close and in touch. Also, the pictures don't have to be current. Historical pictures of meetings, members, S gauge/scale friends, etc are welcome!

Contact me if you have any issues or questions.

This is our New Website!

We have decided to move our website to a company that specializes in supporting clubs. There are several other reasons why this is a good move for the club:

1. Several people will be able to update sections of the website. Officers can post information to their specific areas. Jim Babish will be able to post to the archives. This will help keep the site up to date, as well as easing the transition when I can no longer do the website.

2. Any member can post pictures! We can have an unlimited number of photo albums, and anyone can create them!

3. Dues can be collected on-line.

4. The package includes social networking, which may interest us in the future.

5. There are built-in financial reports for any money collected through the web.

6. Knowledge of HTML coding not required to update and maintain the sight.

7. Automatic backups.

8. Professional security. We will be able to post information that can only be seen by the members.

It will take a while to move over all the useful information from the old site, so it will stay active for a while. I will no longer be updating it, however, so please check this site for meeting information and anything current.

You will need an account and password to get into the member only section of this site. If you don't have one, please email me at hlenartre@gmail.com.

Helen