The Wrecking Crew Model Railroad Club

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United States
Birmingham, AL
The Wrecking Crew Model Railroad Club

We are a 100% NMRA model railroad club based at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama.

We are a diverse group of modelers covering a wide range of interests and time periods, who currently model in N, HO, HOn3, On30 and G scale.

03/05/2026

Catching everyone up on the happenings on the new Atlantic, Gulf & Western layout over the past few weeks. Captions in each photo.

03/02/2026

This past Friday night the club suffered a deep loss as Bob Beaty passed away. Bob was a retired Navy pilot and a phenomenal modeler and was one of four NMRA Master Model Railroaders ( #192) that the club has had thus far. Bob was there since day one when the club was founded and was a great friend, mentor, and teacher in every aspect of the hobby. Bob was a phenomenal model builder and if you ever had a model in a contest room across from one of his, you knew you better be on your A-game! He will be greatly missed. God speed Bob!

02/09/2026

Since the club's founding in 1989, we have always emphasized the importance of being a teaching club and pushing our members to improve their skills. This past Saturday was no exception. One of our young prospective members was showing some interest in a tracklaying job that was in progress on the new layout. Naturally, we decided to let this young fellow try his hand at installing a turnout on a future industrial siding. Veteran modeler Jim Schaaf is seen here showing how to snip the ties off the ends of the flex track and install rail joiners. The track was secured to the roadbed, this young man made a perfect installation! Never miss an opportunity to teach and share this great hobby to the next generation.

01/19/2026

A landmark day occurred this past Saturday. Trackwork has been installed for the AG&W mainline for a few weeks now and test trains have gone over much of the layout but the last module had yet to put in place to allow the mainlines to be travelled in a full continuous loop. This weekend changed that as the final module section was finally slid into into place, hinged it to the adjoining sections, and connected the final section of track to have a complete loop. Much care has been done to ensure smooth and reliable trackwork, but with that said the occasional "oopsie daisies" can still occur. After running a diesel engine around the whole layout, a train was assembled to make the journey..
Murphy was riding on this train as a low coupler pin on a car found a track nail that was not flush with the track and chaos ensued. Fortunately, this was an easy fix. The low coupler pin was removed, the track nail repaired, and the the train to continued its journey.
A few more cars were added and several shakedown trips around the layout were successfully completed without further incident.

01/12/2026

The 2025 Magic of Model Trains show is in the books, the layouts are in storage again, and it’s time for us to start work again on the new Atlantic, Gulf & Western. During the show we also had interest forms for prospective members and folks interested in the hobby. We reached out to these folks and invited them to come by and visit us. We were absolutely blown away at the turnout this past Saturday! Over 20 people, many of them parents with kids in tow showed up to see the new layout up close, ask questions, and learn. We also gave a few of the kids an Accurail freight car kit and showed them how to build their first car kit. Interesting in learning more about the hobby? We would love to have you. Feel free to reach out to us.

11/21/2025

We're just about ready with all of our displays for McWane's Magic of Model Trains exhibit which starts November 22 and runs through January 4th. This year's exhibit is also planned to be the swansong for our trusty Locust Grove & Western layout. After 24 years, she has outlived her predecessor by almost double the amount of years, endured thousands of miles of travel around the southeast, and an untold number of running hours over the last few years on McWane's 3rd floor, the old girl has simply worn herself out. She has served us very well over the years and always has been a hit at shows and with visitors. But alas, it has now become time to begin a new chapter in the club and give the chance for some younger members of the group to exercise their talents. While the new layout will still be a year or so away from being ready for full display, we have decided to bring up a few modules as a sneak peak of what is to come.

10/15/2025

Work is still progressing on the new layout. The plan is to bring a few sections of the river crossing area to the McWane 3rd floor display this upcoming Magic of Model Trains exhibit to show a "sneak peak" of what is to come. As such, some preliminary scenery work has begun in this area. Also, member Sly Ivory has been playing around with an interesting technique for painting and weathering track.

08/31/2025

More work on the new layout today. The roadbed is close to making it all the way around. Also, while the track will have almost no grades around loop we plan on keeping variations in the surrounding terrain to avoid a flat “tabletop” look. To the left of the river crossing, buildup of layers of foam board were built up which will create an earthen cut as the tracks go around the corner.

08/19/2025

Work on the new layout continued on the new layout last weekend with the track laying crew in high gear laying the recently released Walthers code 83 track on the mainlines. Since we have a few new members, tracklaying veterans like Carey Jenkins and Jim Schaaf took the opportunity to teach them some of fundamentals of trackwork. Care must be taken in this step as sloppy installation and alignment will lead to derailments and other headaches down the road. Needless to say, reliability will be critical for the many hours of continuous running this layout will eventually be seeing. The hope is to have test trains running around the loops in a few weeks. Oh, and don't worry about those huge expanses of flat foamboard. We plan on plenty of terrain contouring once the track placement is finalized and tested. Even the "flat" prairies aren't really flat. Stay tuned!

07/27/2025

Some pictures from yesterday's work session on the new layout. (photos courtesy of Mike Floyd)

07/21/2025

A new upcoming show in October up in North Mississippi by our friends at the NMRA Bluff City Division.

08/31/2024

Trestle bent #6 of 24 going on now. This is a double track wood trestle that will be an approach span (about 4 ft long) for a vertical lift bridge on the Wrecking Crew’s new layout getting built now.

Address

Birmingham, AL

Website

http://www.wreckingcrewbham.com/

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