We have now been in existance for over 70 years.. When the Society was first formed, soon after the Second World War it was almost impossible to obtain model railway items. Discounting the war years, it was only three or four years since Meccano Ltd had introduced their 3-rail Dublo range; many modellers still thought in terms of gauge '0' but there were to be no more electric Hornby gauge '0' locomotives.

Initially, some railway enthusiasts met in a room over "Modellers Mecca", a shop on Beverley Road near Stepney railway station. From then, until May 1953 there was no clubroom where a layout could be built and members benefited from lectures, demonstrations and discussions, some of them in a room hired at Paragon railway station. But then the Society obtained a clubroom at 18 Hutt Street and work went ahead on building a '00' gauge layout. Space was at a premium but enthusiasm was high and a layout was built that would accommodate all types of '00', stock, custom built or proprietary. In 1957, the Society was offered the use of a large room over "Sportscraft", a model shop at Blundell's Buildings where the Hull Daily Mail offices now stand. It is known that the second model railway exhibition which the Society laid on was in 1959 at Farmery Hall in George Street.

A larger room over a small supermarket in Gypsyville became available in 1966 where we had nine happy years and layouts were built in 7mm, 4mm, 3mm and 2mm scales. The Society exhibited a layout at the Hull Show in East Park (where the ground was far from level) for two years and held open days at the clubroom each year when hundreds of people squashed in during four days to see our layouts. The sale of these premises meant the loss of our clubroom and all our equipment went into store. For about four years, we still met weekly for lectures or outings with a small period during which, at a room high up in George Street, we were able to build one of the Society's first 'portable' layouts. Steel was used for the baseboard frames; it was very heavy! It was exhibited in the City Hall at a modellers exhibition.

The Leisure Services section of Hull City Council then gave us the opportunity to rent premises in Walton Street in 1978 where we still have our club room. However, the premises are no longer run by the Leisure Services and we are now part of a self-financing organisation, the Walton Street Community and Leisure Association.

The membership of the Society has consistently remained in the 50-70 range over most of its existence with members ranging from teenagers to those in their eighties. The longest serving member has attended for over 48 years. The standard of modelling has improved over the years to an extent, which is hard to imagine. Fifties models would not get shown today. All of the layouts made now are portable and many of them, both Society layouts and those built and owned by individual mambers have been exhibited over much of the country, from Folkestone to Glasgow, from Liverpool to Whitby and even to parts of the continent of Europe. Our name is well known in the model railway press, for many of our layouts have been described there and we consider ourselves to be one of the largest and best model railway societies in the country.

Meetings, held twice a week, are spent in making railway layouts, running trains, talking railways and exchanging ideas. A competition enables us to display our skills in modelling, designing or writing about model railways. We have occasional outings to places of railway interest, an occasional railway quiz night . Our biggest annual enterprise is the Hull Model Railway Show each November. We are also now organising a regular, much smaller, Summer Show usually in June. Details of these Shows are given on the relevant pages of this website.

And we are normally pleased to have new members join us! For details please see our information page.

page updated 14th July 2023