About Us

History of the club including significant events

 In the autumn of 1989, two elderly members of the 'Helensburgh Model Boat Builders Club' put an advert in the 'Helensburgh Advertiser', looking to start a proposed model railway club in the town. These gents were war heroes Gilbert Hutchison and Archie Allan, retired Merchant Seaman who had served on the Arctic convoys of WW2, taking US and UK munitions and materiel to the Soviet Union from Faslane, known as British Military Port No 1 during the war.

In response to the advert, a meeting was held at the 'Clyde Community Centre' in Clyde Street, once a school and now Argyll and Bute Council area HQ. There was sufficient interest from locals as well as several Royal Navy and MOD employees based at Faslane, to start a model railway club and H&DMRC was born. The formalities were completed, a constitution agreed, the rental of a regular club room in the Clyde Centre was aquired and Geoff Dalton was elected Chairman with Mike Lovell as secretary. A club logo, based on that of the North British Locomotive Company was also created. Gilbert and Archie, along with Dave Forrest, a local retired electrical engineer, became the backbone of the club for the next decade.

The club joined the AMRSS and its first club layout, which made its debut at Model Rail 1991, was called "Trierro" (trial and error). It was described in the Modelrail '91 programme as 'a continuous (oo) layout with a branch line running from station with goods avoiding line and sidings...'  Trierro was a successful first effort, and was followed by 'Seaforth', a larger 2 level 'oo' gauge looped layout. The club was going from strength to strength, so much so that with the 100th anniversary of the West Highland main line (Glasgow to Fort William), due in 1994, the club decided, very ambitiously, to model Craigendoran Pier, as it was in the 1950s in 'oo' gauge. This massive undertaking took a year to complete, with Gilbert and Archie using their boatbuilding skills and Dave, his skills as an electrician, to great effect. A 4mm model of a Clyde Paddle steamer 'Jeanie Deans' sat at the pier and local artist, the late Neil MacLeod painted beautiful end panels on the layout that measured 30ft by 15ft. The layout's public debut was at the Victoria Halls '100 years of the WHL' event, sponsored by Scotrail, in August 1994, as a static model, before being electrified for its operational debut at Modelrail 1995. A souvenir ticket from the show can seen below. There, it received many plaudits, winning 2 cups, including one for scenery albeit it was not voted 'best in show'. Craigendoran went to to appear again at Modelrail on three more occasions, the last appearance coming in 2000.

Pictures are shown below along with an original track plan. Sadly the layout had deteriorated so much that it had to be confined to the skip in 2026. The 'Jeanie Deans' and several of the buildings have been stored successfully.