The Bellingham Society of Model Engineers (BSME) was founded in 1994 by
a group of model railroaders who shared a common interest in constructing
a large club layout. Although there was already a model railroad club in
town, its layout had been completed, filling the basement of a law firm at
the corner of Holly and Broadway and thus lacking any possibility for
expansion. The law firm basement was a crowded space with a low ceiling.
The BSME’s founders envisioned building a new layout in a large space,
designed to accommodate lots of visitors. (Interestingly, soon after the
formation of the BSME, the other club lost its home and is now located in
a private residence.)
An agreement was reached between club members and Gold Hill Station, a
hobby shop specializing in model trains. Gold Hill Station had recently
relocated from Cornwall Street to 111 Grand Avenue in downtown Bellingham,
and agreed to have the club build its layout below the store in a space
the club would use rent-free. Unfortunately, Gold Hill Station closed
shortly after the initial stages of the layout were completed. With the
store’s demise, the club went through a period in which it was unclear
whether it would be able to remain at the Grand Avenue location. Happily,
arrangements were made with the landlord after the new tenant—MindPort,
a hands-on science gallery—moved into the former Gold Hill Station
space.
Work began anew on the HO-scale layout (1/87th the size of
real trains) in 1995. Much of the original layout was demolished and
rebuilt. The track plan was redesigned by club members and drawn using
AutoCAD, a popular computer-aided design program. Although the trains are
only scale models, the grades on the layout can’t be much steeper than
those in the real world. The CAD program enabled the BSME to design new sections
of the layout within the accurate three-dimensional computer model, so
members would
know that everything would fit and work properly before
building commenced. The CAD system also helped members plan the sometimes complex wood and
steel construction that supports the visible portions of the layout, and
enabled members to experiment with new ideas before laying track.
When
the layout was begun, trains were controlled by breaking
the track up into short electrically isolated sections called blocks.
To control a particular train, members controlled the voltage on that
block of track. As the train moved into the next block, operators would
throw toggle switches so that they could control the voltage of the next
block. Although this is how most layouts were operated at the time, it was
cumbersome and didn’t allow that many individual trains to be operated
at once. In addition, it was easy for a member to lose control of his or
her train if it inadvertently ran forward into a block that was occupied
by another train and therefore under the control of someone else. This
block control system also resulted in literally miles of extensive,
complicated wiring.
In the fall of 1997, the club abandoned its conventional block control
system and installed a new type of system called Digital Command Control (DCC),
which was purchased from Digitrax, one of several companies that had begun
to offer such systems. In a DCC system, each locomotive is fitted with a
small computer chip called a decoder, and is assigned a unique
address. The complex wiring was removed and replaced with a single pair of
wires that delivers a constant voltage to all of the track. The model
engineers use a small handheld throttle set to the address of their
specific locomotive. The throttles send a digital signal across the track
that tells the specific locomotive what to do: speed up, slow down, go
forward, reverse, and so on. Each locomotive responds only to signals sent
to its specific address and ignores the signals sent to any other address.
In that way, members can control a virtually unlimited number of
trains all running simultaneously, without any of the restrictions imposed
by the old-style block control. In effect, they control the trains,
not the track. Of course, the new system does have one potential drawback.
It is now possible for trains to collide head-on. But that sometimes
happens in the real world as well. The end result of DCC is that the model
engineers now operate the trains in a fashion much more like real
engineers.
The BSME was one of the first large club layouts in the country to
switch over to DCC. Many other clubs and individuals consulted with
BSME club members as DCC became an accepted standard among model
railroaders.
In 1999, club members added another new dimension to the layout. The
DCC standard also presents the ability to control sound and lighting
effects. Several members began experimenting with installing
sound-equipped decoders and speakers inside their locomotives. Model
engineers could now not only control the speed and direction of the
trains, but also blow the whistle. Suddenly, the miniature
locomotives sounded like the real thing. Diesel locomotives feature the
deep thrum of massive generators and steam engines mimic the distinctive
chuff and clatter of actual engines, all digitally recorded and stored on
the miniature chips inside the scale models. The addition of sound was an
immediate hit and many of the trains running on the club layout now have
realistic sound.
The BSME layout grew into one of the largest model train layouts
on the west coast. It was housed in a space measuring over 100-feet by
30-feet. In addition to the layout itself, there was also a club meeting
room, workspace, library, and storage areas. There was also additional
space into which the layout could have grown in the future.
An undertaking as large as the BSME layout
could only be built in phases.
Initially, club members built a large section of the layout that operated
as a big loop of track. During open houses, trains would simply be run
continuously around this loop.
While the layout
was not based on any specific railroad, its many lakes,
rivers, and mountains captured the flavor of railroading in the Pacific
Northwest. As part of that flavor, the track climbed over a mountain pass,
which culminated with a large curved wooden trestle that proved to be
a focal point of the layout. Club members subsequently completed
a second adjacent focus, a deep canyon with a lake at the
bottom and a waterfall in the distance. The canyon was spanned by an
impressive steel arch bridge. Both the wooden trestle and steel arch
bridge were loosely based on actual structures and were built from scratch
by club members. Each took over six months to complete.
During the second phase of construction, which was completed in 2000,
members added a major city representing Spokane as the eastern terminus of
the railroad. With its completion, trains no longer ran in circles, but
rather ended their journeys in Spokane, where they disappeared down a
spiral helix, descending to a hidden staging area where members could
"make up" a new train and send it out onto the layout. This type
of mechanism is used on many large layouts, including the one at the
Washington State Historical Museum in Tacoma. But the staging is usually
hidden from view, so that visitors can imagine that the train has
continued to additional destinations beyond the boundaries of the layout.
It turned out, however, that many visitors were as equally intrigued by
the helix as they were by the rest of the layout, and a decision was made
to create windows into this hidden area so they could watch the train
descend.
Phase
three commenced with work on the "other end" of the
layout, the western terminus of Seattle, which also had a hidden staging
area at the bottom of a helix. This area of the layout, while still not a
duplication of the actual location, was to be closest in appearance to the
actual city. Members planned to build a scale model of King Street Station
and portions of the Seattle waterfront, and many of the other buildings would
have
resembled actual structures on the Seattle skyline. The painted backdrop
would even include the Space Needle. The Seattle portion of the layout was
housed in an area expanded into adjacent space, which increased the
total area of the layout and provided room for an operating drawbridge and
a three-ring circus under a "big top."
Another aspect that members began to experiment with was the addition
of live closed-circuit television
broadcast from a moving scale model train. For the first time, visitors
could
experience the layout from a scale engineer’s point of view. Using a
miniature video camera, both the image and sound was broadcast from the
moving train to several televisions located in the layout space, helping
to further immerse visitors into the scale environment.
The
original HO-scale BSME layout contained more than 10 scale miles of mainline
track (over 600 linear feet of actual track). Since most
of the layout consisted of a double-track mainline, however, and since that
figure did not include the many industrial sidings, there was nearly 2000
feet of track on the layout. There were also more than 100 switches (or turnouts,
as model railroaders refer to them so as to differentiate between electrical switches and
the mechanisms used to divert or turn a train onto a different section of
track).
The layout
was constructed from a wide range of materials. The track was
all commercially made, purchased in three-foot sections and then
carefully cut and bent to fit the necessary curves. Turnouts were also
commercially made. Some turnouts were electrically controlled using hidden
motors. Others were simply thrown by hand. Buildings were made of plastic,
wood, metal, or cardboard and built from kits or entirely
"scratch-built" by members. Many of the buildings featured
interiors and lighting. Several of the newer buildings included flashing
neon signs. The terrain was created using plaster over a base of cardboard
and wood. The underlying structure was wood and steel. The realistic rocks
and concrete walls were actually cast plaster, painted to look like the
real thing, although there were some real rocks as well. Nearly a ton of
plaster was used on the layout.
The "ballast" holding down the track
was actual limestone from
a local quarry, and was very similar to the rock used on the local
Burlington Northern right-of-way, although at a much smaller scale. Ground
cover—grass, weeds, and shrubs—was primarily finely ground foam rubber
dyed to a variety of colors and held in place with glue. Trees were modeled
from a variety of materials including foam rubber, furnace filters, cotton
fiber, and other materials on armatures of wood, wire, or plastic, as well
as real plant material such as weeds and roots. There were several
thousand scale trees throughout the layout, and members planned to add thousands
more. The "water" in the
many lakes and rivers was actually plastic resin poured over realistically
painted stream- and lake-beds. Several hundred scale "people"
inhabited the layout, and hundreds more were to be added, along with cars,
trucks, signs, mailboxes, street lamps, and even scale trash, to make the
layout look as much as possible like the real world.
The entire layout
was built by the volunteer members of the
Bellingham Society of Model Engineers. Membership in the club is open to
anyone with an interest in trains and model railroading. Members pay dues
to support the club's operation. Other than dues, the club relies
entirely on visitor donations in order to pay the rent and utilities, and
to buy the materials used to build the layout. The original layout cost
more than $20,000 to build.
More than 30 members belonged to the BSME when it was located in
downtown Bellingham.
Members bridged a wide age span
and represented a very diverse cross-section of backgrounds including people
who work on real railroads and those who simply dreamed as children of
someday being an engineer. Members included doctors, architects, engineers,
computer programmers, teachers, electricians, machinists, truck drivers,
and lots of others. Model railroading is actually one of the largest and
actively growing hobbies in the world, yet some people are embarrassed to
admit that they "play with toy trains." BSME members were very proud of
the miniature world they built in downtown Bellingham.
After nearly seven years of work, it rated as one of the most
extensive and progressive model train layouts on the west coast, and was fast becoming one the best in the U.S.
The club, which is actually a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, owns the
layout, including all the track, scenery, and electrical controls.
Individual members own their own trains. An average member may spend as
little as $40 or as much as $400 or more on a locomotive and DCC chip.
Individual railroad cars—the rolling stock—average $12 each although
prices vary and some members spend much more as they modify their rolling
stock with more realistic couplers and other details. Members have access
to the layout at any time and can run trains or work on the layout
whenever they choose. Now called the WSMRRC, the club opens its doors to the public at various
times throughout the year and will do so more frequently as more of the
layout is completed.
In 2004, the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA), the largest
organization for model railroad hobbyists, held its national
convention in Seattle. The BSME layout was scheduled to be part of a tour
of home and club layouts in the area. The club's goal was to have the
layout completed and the majority of the scenery finished to a very high
level in time for that convention. But we planned to continue working
beyond that objective, refining the level
of detail and adding more realism, both for our own enjoyment and that of
our visitors. We had hoped to eventually acquire more of the space in the basement at
111 Grand Avenue that we might continue to fill.
Unfortunately, the BSME lost its lease in June 2003 and had to demolish
this layout. The club held its final open house at 111 Grand Avenue on Saturday, May 31 and Sunday, June 1. More than 2,000
people visited the layout during its final two days of operations. These
final days were recorded in a video titled "The
End of an Era."
In April 2004, the BSME moved into a new home at 1469 Silver Run Lane.
This new location, 10 miles south of Bellingham on the border of Whatcom
and Skagit counties, while smaller than the space at 111 Grand Avenue,
offers the opportunity to build two entirely new layouts—HO and
N-scale—marking a beginning of a new chapter for the BSME.
In the spring
of 2010, members voted to change the name to the Whatcom Skagit Model
Railroad Club (WSMRRC), in recognition of the fact that in its new
location the club attracts members and visitors from both Whatcom and
Skagit counties. The name may have changed, but the mission remains the
same.
