On the 15th January 1951, ten like-minded souls contributed £1 each (lsd in those days), and the Falmouth Model Railway Club was founded.

One of those members was the late L. F. Barham who owned a cycle and model shop in the High Street. He held a number of committee positions and later became president of the club. The club has occupied a number of properties including some workshops in Norfolk Road, a sail loft, accessed from the High Street down a flight of 80 steps and up a wooden staircase, and Arwenack Avenue, where we rented a large wooden building from Falmouth Town F.C.

From the outset the club has had a tradition of building exhibition layouts and holding exhibitions. One of the earliest was 'The West Cornwall Lines' which featured in the May 1955 edition of Railway Modeller and when exhibited at a show in the local Drill Hall, was viewed by over 4,500 people. The layout was 20' x 8' and consisted of a model of Truro station, goods yard and engine shed (83F), although condensed to two-thirds of the correct scale length.



This tradition continued at Arwenack Avenue albeit on a more permanent basis, as the building contained not only a large layout room, but also a small cinema, the seats having been purchased from the closed Gaiety Cinema in Newlyn, now the Meadery. During our time at this location, we ran an annual exhibition for two weeks in August, which involved opening the clubrooms daily from 10:30am - 9pm, not Sundays of course! The public were treated to a variety of trains on our club layout, which consisted of a four track mainline, a branch with intermediate station and passing loop. The main stations were Broome Junction (six platforms/goods yard/carriage sidings/mpd), and Pendennis (branch terminus) with two platforms, the main one holding ten coaches, also a goods yard and engine shed. One memorable feature of this layout was the Brunel style wooden viaduct, which at approximately six feet in length and nearly two feet high, was an imposing structure. Those were the days!

Time moves on and with Falmouth Town F.C. having constructed a new social club adjacent to their ground at Bickland Parc, we vacated Arwenack Avenue and for a year or so met in the basement of the local Buffalo's club. We then moved to cricket pavilion of the former Falmouth Grammar School in Tregenver Road, this became our home for nearly twenty years until 2001.

With the loss of our permanent exhibition layout we set about building portable layouts, one of which was a joint project between one of our members and the club, and so Roseladden and Tregenver was born. The layout was built to S4 (18.83mm gauge) standards and was exhibited at number of local shows including the City Hall in Truro and the Guild Hall in Plymouth.

During the 1990s, the club began to hold an annual exhibition again, on the last weekend of the school summer holidays, as it does to this day. Initially these were staged at the Arts Centre in the town centre. However, in 2001 it was decided to hold a 50th Anniversary Exhibition at Trescobeas School. We subsequently held a number of bigger and better shows at this venue. In line with our desire to improve both quality and reflect the diversity of interests within the model railway fraternity, we decided in 2006 to relocate the annual exhibition to Truro, and so the Three Spires Railex was born. The name reflects the fine cathedral which dominates the city, and incidentally is one of only three cathedrals in Britain to have three spires, the others being Lichfield Cathedral and St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh.
Please see our Three Spires Railex site for details of our next show.

We have been in our present accommodation for some time but for security reasons we cannot give our address on the web, but more info can be obtained from our club secretary (see our contacts page).

Nigel Tregoning (FMRC Exhibition Manager)