The
Greater Three Rivers
and
Cedar Creek
Model Railroad Club
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The |
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| The Greater Three Rivers and Cedar Creek model railroad club (or GTRAC, for short) is a modular railroad group, exclusively running G-scale trains. We started in the early 1990’s, meeting at Summit Hobby Shop, which at the time was located on the north side of Fort Wayne. Summit Hobby has since closed it’s doors, but we found a few other “stations” to set up shop, ultimately finding a stable home in Southtown Mall, which was located on the south side of Fort Wayne. We spent over 10 years at Southtown, setting up our first modular display in an empty storefront, and open to the public every Friday night. Our first layout ended up being a 2 track mainline oval, 60 feet long and 15 feet wide! We borrowed heavily from the NTRAK Modular Railroading Society plans in designing our modules as there were no G-scale modular plans available at the time. Around 5 years after arriving at Southtown, we set out to build our second modular layout, this one being smaller overall in size, and easier transported. It was made in an “L” shape configuration, measuring 18 feet on both the long sides of the “L”. We also improved the design, upgrading with many features better accommodating the large trains as well as speeding up our setup and teardown time. And with the second (traveling) layout, we could easily travel to train shows with it, yet leave our original “big” layout in place (which was a good thing for us as the big layout wasn’t the easiest to move around). Unfortunately, around 2003, Southtown Mall closed it’s doors forever, and we were on the hunt for a new home. GTRAC ended up selling the big layout to the city of Muncie, Indiana, to use as a Christmas display. The proceeds from the sale were used to buy a trailer to haul and store the traveling layout, should we remain homeless. Enter Prime Outlets Shopping Mall in Fremont, Indiana. Prime Outlets came to us, and a deal was struck for a new home in short order. With the new storefront and room to grow, the members of GTRAC have started a new “big” layout, complete with 10’ diameter curves and approaching the size of our original layout. We are still in the building and growing stages with this new layout, but we are able to run trains on it, to include any of the largest equipment offered by the retail world. GTRAC shares the space with the Northern Indiana O Gaugers (an O-scale modular group) as well as an On30 scale layout and a couple of small private layouts. We are located in the Prime Outlets South portion of the mall, right next to Toy Liquidators, and are open every Saturday from noon to 4 P.M. (but trains may not always run on time). We always welcome visitors, questions, and of course, new members! Our current membership tally hovers around 35 people from all walks of life. Membership dues are $50 a year, which cover the utilities, insurance, and other expenditures generated by having a shopping mall “clubhouse” and layout. Members are entitled to run trains on the club layouts at Prime Outlets, participate in displaying and running trains at train shows, and a vote at business meetings. Please feel free to approach us with questions! | ||
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The GTRAC
Club is located in Fremont, Indiana’s
Prime
Outlets Shopping Mall |