Work to establish a home for South Canterbury model train enthusiasts is still on track.
Last year a sub-group of the South Canterbury Model Engineering Club (SCME) was formed with the goal of establishing an indoor model rail road club at the municipal indoor rifle range building in Craigie Ave.
A year on the group was steadily garnering interest and continuing to transform the building into a home fit for the hobby.
Group member Rob Read said while they had been spending a lot of time repainting the walls and tidying up the building to make it suitable — there was still a lot of work left to do.
‘‘We are sort of short on running costs, so that’s something we are going to have to look at. The plan is to look at some fundraising ideas.
‘‘We also want to do some work down the end of the building because it is still a dirt floor at the range part.
‘‘We want to look at getting some quotes and hopefully getting some grants or sponsorships to put towards that. Even if we’re doing a lot of the labour just getting the materials would be a big help.’’
He said the group had initially met up once a month, then twice a month and were now meeting every Thursday night.
‘‘It’s sort of become amalgamation of two or three different informal groups to actually make it a more formal group with a dedicated club rooms.
‘‘We have a good wider group with people popping in when they can but we probably have a core of about six to eight people that show up every Thursday.
‘‘In the future when we get things more sorted out, we’ll have hopefully an open day once a month where we can open it up for the public to come and have a look and see what we’re doing.’’
Mr Read said although a lot of work was going into the building, the group had been working on an N scale layout as well as restoring the wellknown Talmar layout which had been purchased by fellow member and SCME president Trevor Kissell.
‘‘Talmar went to quite a few exhibitions and conventions and there’s of lot of people interested to see where it’s at. It was always a favourite at shows.
‘‘Unfortunately, one of the people that had some of the modules passed away and those modules have disappeared. Hopefully we can bring it back to life.’’
Mr Kissell said the group had slowly been gathering momentum but they were still a bit restricted by being in the set up phase.
‘‘You don’t really know what to expect with a new group because there will always be people interested but they don’t want to be involved in the set up and just want to come down and do their own thing.
‘‘There’s been a good few people that have come along and said ‘oh, I’ll come back later’ and we’re happy with that. A lot of the nights so far have been spent doing a bit of painting or working on the building.
‘‘Once we get the N scale going and we’re able to run on that, we’re hoping to make it that maybe in the first hour we do some work around the building and then the last half hour we have a play on the trains.’’
Mr Read said people interested in the group were more than welcome to come along on a Thursday night at 7.30pm to see what the group was about or to learn more.
The SCME was also holding open days on Saturday and Sunday from 1pm-4pm and a night run on Saturday from 6pm-8pm.
Mr Kissell said there would also be the opportunity for attendees to check out the smaller indoor models.
