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Miamis AM Express N Scale Club was founded by Alex Gonzalez and a few of his modeling friends in 1994. The current layout is actually the clubs fourth layout. The first layout expanded almost yearly until two years ago when it became a massive modular design with a mainline with five scale miles of track! Alex and a few friends were building it piece by piece, section by section, modular style in Alexs double car garage. Their goal was to show it at the annual December train show in Fort Lauderdale. The club had taken third place a couple of years earlier, second the previous year, and was really going all out for first prize this time! But try as we might all we could do is get another second prize. That layout was basically a single
long track that went around a big zig zag with a two scale mile
short line attached at both extremes. But due to the fact there
was no place to assemble the layout, other than in a very large
hall, we had no place to run. At the beginning of 1998 TexN Rails rented the club a permanent place to work and run which was shared with an HO club that would use the upstairs while the AM Express got the downstairs. The downstairs was also shared with TexN Rails who used the area for the storage of a company vehicle and merchandise. The only major problem was there still was not enough room for the club's gigantic five scale mile modular layout design! So, with a lot of consternation, we just scrapped the whole thing and began to design layout number four! And the latest version of the AM Express is now a functional fully digital layout with ample passing tracks, two independent two scale mile mainlines, and a ton of scenery! The club layout is in the shape
of an inverted capital letter "G" (see the layout plan).
Imagine the "G" upside down with a mountain area on
the top of the "G", two long runs along the backside
of the "G" and a river town along the lower leg and
the upwards curve. Originally designed to be moveable for train shows on six large modules, after only one show the layout was permanently assembled. The stress of moving it was too much on the scenery! The layout is most impressive when trains are run in opposing directions utilizing the passing tracks which are found all around the layout. But every "engineer" really must keep their eyes on their train! The top of the inverted "G" (actually at the bottom of the club layout), called the Mountain Division, is 10 feet by 4 feet and includes a small store and a mining facility with a loop-back track which runs up from and back down into the "green" mainline. The "red" mainline runs through the town of Dry Creek through one end of the mountain division into a short tunnel and loops back on itself to go back through Dry Creek and back to the railroad town of Dogwood at the other end of the layout. Interestingly, these lines got their "red" and "green" names when we originally mapped out the tracks using red and green knitting twine. The names have simply stuck ever since. Thats how the AM Express arrived at its present state. There is plenty of room for expansion and there is talk the layout may someday more than double in size. All is needed is more members, more man power, and cash! Since the main layout is now too large and detailed to be easily moved, the club is in the process of building another show layout. This one is being built to "near" N track specifications. Each member is building their own 4 foot by 2 foot module with a semi-continuous scenery theme. Some time this year these modules will be ready for the first local train show. By the way, the club got the "first prize" the one and only time this layout was shown in Fort Lauderdale! For much more info on how the layout was constructed be sure and buy a copy of the January 2000 issue of N Scale Magazine! |
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The Club's URLs are: http://www.amexpressnscale.cc/ Contact the Club President or the webmaster with questions or comments. This page is best viewed with Internet Explorer 3.0 or Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later. The contents of this web site are Copyright © 2000 AM Express N Scale Railroad Club All rights reserved. |
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The Web Ring logo and the RPO illustration are copyrighted by their respective creators. |
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