Club History

In 1950 - 51 Les Street , then a member of the Waikato Society of Model and Experimental Engineers tried to get them to form a model railroaders group within the society but without success. He then advertised in the 'Waikato Times' seeking interested parties and Jack Hefford was the first to reply. The formation of the Hamilton Model Railroaders took place in July 1952 when a small group of enthusiasts headed by Les and Jack officially formed a model railroad club which mushroomed for two years with a peak membership of twenty three. Graeme Robinson joined the Club in February 1954. While not exactly earth shattering, volume 1 No. 1 of the club magazine 'The Footplate' was published in May 1954 and this was the forerunner of issues to date.

The early history of the club can be traced fairly easily by following the final days of NZR Coach EA1134. In August, 1954 the Club tendered ten pounds ($20) for the purchase of an ex-Wellington and Manawatu Railway 42 foot coach, which was surplus to the NZR's requirements. The tender was accepted and the HMR became one of the first organisations to have a coach for a clubrooms. In May 1956, EA1134 was placed on site on railway land in Forest Lake Road. There she remained for 13 years during which time she was restored to her former glory and the interior was converted into a cosy clubroom and layout headquarters. The coach was the scene of many a club meeting, Wednesday night working bees and numerous social occasions when we entertained kindred clubs who were on visits to Hamilton.

Then, in June 1967 we suffered a serious setback when vandals forced their way into the coach and caused considerable damage to the coach interior, especially the layout and models of a sawmill and port dioramas. The wharf was irrepairable, but the sawmill was restored and is now included in the club's NZR layout. Shortly after this incident, with the development of the new marshalling yards at Te Rapa, the coach was moved to these yards and continued to give excellent service for a further 11 years. In 1978, a burgeoning club membership, coupled with a deterioration of the condition of the coach, made her a barrier to the progress of the Club and she was retired gracefully to the Bush Tramway Society at Rotowaro.

From 1978 the Club went through something of a transformation with meetings held at the Glenview Hall with an average attendance of around 35. The main area of concern with the change of venue was whether the morale and camaraderie within the club membership would fall. However, this did not happen and much of the credit for this can be attributed to the continued publication of the 'Footplate' which has been a strong catalyst in binding the members together whenever we have had a 'low' patch in our history. On 20th December, 1984 this Club became officially incorporated.

About this time, following the inspiration and considerable effort of our then President Grant Mansell, we launched into fundraising by holding public exhibitions, raffles etc. These were instituted for the purpose of building our own clubrooms and a debenture scheme was also well supported by club members. We were also kindly supported by a generous financial arrangement with one of our members, Harry Davison.
The contract for the new clubrooms was let to Frankton Buildings Ltd and work commenced in July 1985. The contract called for a closed-in shell and all internal work - the members carried out insulation, linings, electrical, plumbing etc. Dave Sperry was the Clerk of Works ably assisted by Peter Maisey. While the original building accommodated our needs for a few years, it soon became obvious that we would need more space to house the layouts we were building and so the clubrooms was almost doubled in size to it's present format.


Over the years the HMR have made many exchange visits with other clubs and these have included Wanganui, New Plymouth, Rotorua, Auckland, North Shore, Napier/ Hastings, Tauranga and Wellington. We have seen many fine model railroad layouts on these visits and have been proud to show our efforts to the visitors. Members have also participated in many train excursions covering areas such as the Huntly coal mines, East Coast Main Trunk to the Bay of Plenty, Taumarunui, Wellington, Cambridge branch, Rotorua and Kinleith. There have been many occasions - too many to list when several members have followed the steam excursions to record the occasion on film. A number of excursions to scenes of railway interest have also been made to places like Ellis and Burnand's mills at Ongarue and Mananui, Huntly coal mine area, the Glenbrook steel mill, Mamaku, Ngatira, Mokai.