Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club

97227 Portland, OR, United States of America (USA) (Oregon )

Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club:
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club meets once a week (Tuesdays starting at 7:30pm) to work on the layout, handle club business, and (most importantly) have fun operating our trains. While the club’s layout is devoted exclusively to DCC HO Scale models, fans of all scales are welcome.

Welcome to the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club (CGMRRC), one of the largest model railroad clubs in the Western United States. Founded in 1947, CGMRRC seeks to provide a home for the HO Scale model railroad community in the Greater Portland, OR area, as well as provide education to youth groups and others interested in railroads of all sizes.

Layout

The layout models railroading around the Portland, OR area in the 1950′s—during the transition era from steam to diesel—the heyday of railroading. We model many of the key aspects of railroading in Oregon: industries in and around Portland, the Oregon logging industry, the heavy mainline traffic along the Columbia River Gorge, and the Central Oregon Trunk Line from the wye just west of Wishram, WA along the Deschutes River up to Bend, OR.

The layout is designed to allow the easy flow of a large number of visitors viewing the main layout; During peak traffic of our annual show, we can easily handle as many as 300 visitors per hour.

We’re working on a detailed layout tour, but there are more than a hundred towns, landmarks and scenes we want to highlight. Stay tuned for more updates. Here’s a small sampling to get started.

Union Station 
Perhaps the single most impressive structure on the entire layout is our highly detailed model of Union Station as it was in the 1950′s, built directly from the original blueprints. Our model replicates every detail: the roof lines, the sashes, the windows, the brickwork, and the 150 foot tall Romanesque clock tower.

Mainline
There is more than 2000 feet (36 scale miles) of double laid track on the mainline alone. It follows the route along the Columbia River through towns like Celilo, Wishram, and The Dalles. At the far east end is Spokane, WA … though it’s out of sight on our layout.

Traveling at scale speeds, it takes more than 25 minutes for a train travel from one end of the mainline to the other. Because our mainline is more than 57 scale miles long, we typically have 8 trains spread out along the mainline at the same time. There’s a lot of traffic!

Just like the real railroads, we use a system of waypoints, block detection, and communication between the dispatchers and operators to keep the traffic moving in an orderly (and safe) manner.

Train Show

Each year, the CGMRRC hosts an open house for the public to come enjoy the layout. We fully staff the layout operations with more than 30 operators at once. Our dispatchers and operators get quite a workout while the public enjoys the layout and the many trains operating all day long.

We will feature Thomas and many other famous trains kids of all ages will recognize. The layout is 4200 square feet - approximately the size of a basketball court! There are dozens of highly detailed scenes and thousands of feet of track. We are continually making improvements each year and are striving to make our layout more interactive for our guests to enjoy. You never know what new displays you might see.

• Imprint
• Privacy
• Terms of Use
• Copyright
• FAQ

• About Radiomuseum.org
• Contact
• Press
• Logos
• send2friend