Upcoming Event!
Our Club is planning to attend the Greenberg Train Show at the Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, MA on March 25th and 26th.
Amherst Railway Show - January 27-29, 2023 The Bristol Club had another successful train show attending the Amherst Railway Society event in Springfield, MA Jan 27-29th, 2023. The huge audience saw S-Gauge trains running all weekend. A new battery powered train was added to our fleet and worked at our coal dump section. Tommy got a chance to run his rocket car and surprised the crowd.
We received support from the local Pioneer Valley club and Connecticut S-Gauge clubs for set-up and teardown. A very welcome surprise was Club member, Michael Greene, who drove up from South Carolina to work the show with us.
Additional support was provided by Pioneer Valley club member, George Reneris, who loaned us his animated auto factory for our town section. The factory had lighted sign and rotating car on top. George also ran his beautifully animated Jug Band rail car, the farm animal freight car with rooster sounds and a flatcar with large animated colored snowflake and melodies.
A most disappointing part of the show was closure of the local Bernies Diner. It was alway a real treat for us to visit this restaurant during the show.
Club Meeting - November 12, 2022
John Ciarleglio hosted this months meeting and all of us were eager to check out all the changes that John has been making to his home layout. Several club members had been assisting in track work, switches and other layout updates. John has installed his award winning Clam Box building that is a replica of the famous Ipswich Clam Box seafood restaurant. The building itself looks like an actual clam box.
We reviewed our plans to attend the Amherst Historical Society show in January 2023.
Also at this meeting plans were reviewed for our annual Christmas party which will be held in the hall of the historic St. Paul's Church in Newburyport. Event hosted by Doug Peck.
Club Meeting - October 15, 2022
Our October meeting was held at home of member, Phyllis Sieger. We had 22 members in attendance. This was the club's last chance to view the Sieger layout in its last active status. The layout was de-activated at the meeting and club members had an opportunity to purchase items from it. The Sieger's layout had previously been published in Classic Toy trains magazine and other train magazines. The layout boasted lots of unique and funny scenes, including people crushing grapes in a large vat, bandits hiding stolen painting in an old barn, a swamp with a handing skeleton and a unique cranberry bog harvest scene as well as downtown and seacoast areas. Sad to see it come apart.
Also at this meeting, Don Haiges reviewed our plans for the Greenberg show, Nov 19-20, in the Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, MA.
Club Meeting - September 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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Current 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.