I would like to thank Fraser Ross, a former club member, who e-mailed us this informaton.

The early history of the Club is rather hazy. It was in the first instance a meeting place for a private group of people in a garage in Hillhead, Glasgow. The earliest recorded reference to the club was in a Railway Journal in 1935.

(webmaster comment - we did meet by chance one of the founder members of the club back at an exhibition in Edinburgh in the late 1980s)

Amongst its members in the late 1960s and early 1970s were -

Bill Sanderson
Bill McMillan (owner of McMillan Models of Cathcart)
John Brown
George MacArthur (Caley George)
James McGinty
Graham McLachlan
Neil Clark (NB Neilly)
Bob Alexander
and others

Originally the club was not an open club, you had to be invited to join the club. The club in those days was purely 4mm Fine Scale being Gem Welcut using Code 75 rail and all the points being hand built.

One of the earliest references to the then group in the press, was in the Model Railway News 1965, when it announced that a model railway show would take place to raise funds for The Rotary Club.
It was held, and under written by the late Billy McMillian, with:

Glasgow & West Of Scotland MRG,
Edinburgh & Lothians MRC
Eastbank School MRC
Kirkintilloch Minature Engineering Society (later to become Kirkintilloch MRC)

The exhibition was a major success.

After changing from invite only membership, the club then produced a 2 level layout of 30 foot by 12 foot called "Earnbank". This layout featured in the Railway Modeller of February or March of 1970 or 1971. This layout was the largest around at the time, and took a great deal of concentration to operate.

Both levels had a double track mainline and goods yards, and the bottom level had a station with 2 through lines and a bay platform. Many of the Point Work was hidden, and it wasn't the first time one of the express trains shot into a bay platform, demolishing everything in sight.

Where the two levels met was nicknamed the plough field, what it actually was, was a double double junction, with insulated point work controlled by Signalling. Remember this was before the wonder of electronics, and passage through the Junctions was helped on many occasions by a wink and a prayer.

Ironically, Earnbank had been scrapped by the time it was published in the Railway Modeller. At the exact same time and date, another article in the Model Railway Constructer detailed the clubs construction of a new branch layout called "Kirkton" with photographs being taken by Fraser Ross, who provided this information.

Kirkton reached new grounds in fine scale modelling, and was considered one of the finest layouts in scotland at the time, and included for the first time, working lower quadrant signals. The layout was last seen at a show in England around 15 years ago, with the same electrical fault it had when it was sold.