Club History

 Club History

Around 2009, the old Alnwick and District Model Railway Club was reborn as The Alnwick Model Railway Society. This was never formalised as a society, but constructed an 00 gauge layout with a strong focus on the ECML at Alnmouth, the old Alnwick branch & station and other local railway features.  During the winter of 2011, it became evident that the premises used for the layout was becoming too small for the number of members and size of the layout.  After searching for some months a new venue was located in the village of Rock near Alnwick.  It had already become clear that to undertake this new venture the ‘club’ needed to be formalised. Eventually a constitution was written & approved, the new name of Alnwick Model Railway Club was taken and a bank account opened. After some negotiation, a lease was taken out on the old Village Hall at Rock and planning began.

During the following 11 years our layout, Rock Junction, based on a fictional town in the late 1950's, took shape, The camaraderie and team work that brought it together was beneficial in so many ways to all of our members.  This culminated in the layout being chosen as Railway of the Month in the June 2019 issue of Railway Modeler magazine.  A source of great pride for all the members who had been involved in its creation.

Late in 2023 it became obvious that the floor of the old village hall in Rock was in need of come serious remedial work. After some very amicable discussions with our landlord (Rock Estates) it was realised that the degree of work needed meant that Rock Junction would need to be dismantled and removed from the hall. It would also take some time to complete so a new home was needed for the club. A hunt for a new club room began.

 Local news organisations such as BBC North East and The Northumberland Gazette ran articles on our plight. After a number of false starts in late Aug 2024 we moved into our new home in a dedicated room within Newbiggin by the Sea Sailing Club's club house. This building is the former Colliery Mechanics Institute and we will be doing our best to live up to that former resident's members' engineering expertise, in model form.