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 President@bsgr.us

Club Activities

Summer 2025, Bristol Club Picnic was a big success! We had 37 attendees and as usual, lots of great food. Jack Kelly had his train layout available and running for viewing.
Charlie Franklin brought his Franklin Lumber yard diorama with a working steam motor to drive the sawmill operations!
Bristol 2025 Club picnic

We setup our Bristol Club layout at the March 2025 Greenberg Train show in Wilmington, MA. The layout supports DCC, DC, AC and TMCC so we can run just about any S-gauge train. We also have battery operated locomotives which use the Rail Pro system. Quite a few club members got to run their own trains throughout the weekend. We also ran our camera equipped train engine. Everyone seems to enjoy seeing themselves on TV, including the adults.
We tested out a new location to display the Boucher Circus train using about 15' of temporary track, viewers side, in front of Brasor station. Lots of circus detail items, such as horses, elephants and bleachers, were placed out for Saturday's display. Our Boucher Circus train was on display both days.
We offered a free raffle of an American Flyer train set to kids 16 yrs old and under. On Sunday at 3pm we pulled the winner. Here's the best part; a young girl filled in a raffle slip on Saturday, then she and her family came back on Sunday to watch us pull the winner. As luck would have it, she was the winning name drawn! It was a perfect way to end the show; so exciting. See photo below of Zara with the winning train set. Thanks to all the club members who came out to support this show!
Raffle Winner Zara and Bristol President Tommy

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The Bristol Club set-up our layout at the Amherst Railway Show January 25-26th, 2025. We had fun Saturday with George Reneris who brought his animated T-Rex dinosaur car, a cartoon character flatcar, his Snoopy Great Pumpkin digital display car and an exciting smoking steam engine. Gene Maag assisted George.
Dale was our anchorman at this show. On Saturday he ran his CSX diesel engine with several auto carrier cars on a long freight. Then Sunday kids of all ages were impressed with Dale's New Haven double A engines and New Haven chrome passenger set. On Saturday, Tommy ran his smoking Milwaukee GP9 diesel. As always, visitors enjoyed our camera train and watched themselves on TV as the train ran past them.

George with Smoking Engine
George added a fan that really enhanced the smoke!

Saturday at Layout-Dale and Tommy
Dale stands next to CSX engine he ran on Saturday.

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Greenberg Train and Toy show, Wilmington, MA, was held November 16-17, 2024. At this show, the
Bristol-S-Gauge Railroaders raffled off an American Flyer train set. This is the 3rd time our club has done this raffle. Each time the raffle has been open to kids 16 and under. Below are a couple photos of the drawing itself. Don Hasenzahl made sure all the entries were thoroughly shaken up and John Fucile pulled the winning entry.

John pulling Winning ticket.
All the Entries were shaken up by Don Hasenzahl and John Fucile pulled a ticket.

Winner is Conner
And the Winner was Connor! Congratulations! We hope he will enjoy running it under the Christmas tree.
We hope to see you at our next show - the Amherst Railway show in January.

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It's the start of our train calendar year! We began it with 30 members and guests attending the September 14th, 2024 Club meeting. It was a wonderful sunny day and the hosts, Tommy and Helen Robichaud, surprised us with a sale table and a variety of pizza for lunch along with Tommy's traditional chili. Trains were running on the colorful, autumn themed layout as well. Everyone was so busy catching up after the summer that we forgot to get some photos of it all. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the October meeting. Check the Club info tab and Calendar for future events.

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NEW B&M Quad Hoppers for Sale!

We're celebrating our 75th Year Anniversary milestone by offering B&M Quad Hopper cars featuring the "Minuteman" herald which are being produced by American Models. These car models will be available with three different car numbers (8000, 8248 and 8323). These numbers are from the March 1929 and February 1930 range from 8000-8999. The Original 1929 quad hoppers were later "re-shopped" with the "Minuteman" herald from the 1940's.
Each car number will be available in both scale and high-rail. Due to limited quantities, we reserve the right to fill orders for either one or two cars with car numbers of our choosing. Orders for three cars will receive all three car numbers.
Photo above is similar to production car.
OFFER GOOD WHILE SUPPLY LASTS
Click B&M Quad Hopper Order Form to place your order NOW!

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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.

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. 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 vp@bsgr.us