In 1980, a notice was placed in Model Railroader magazine with a call for model railroaders in southeastern Connecticut interested in forming a model railroad club and so the Mohegan Pequot Model Railroad Club was formed. The initial meetings set the name for the club as well as appointed the first set of officers.
The first show the club was asked to participate at was the Ledyard Fair on Labor Day Weekend in 1981. The club was able to pull together a small display with an operating S tinplate layout and a N scale layout.
The club began its module tradition later that year with it's first module display at a NMRA event in Groton, CT. Many lessons were learned from these early shows with standards developed and ideas to improve the layout shared among members.
The club's largest growth spurt occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s when the club was able to hold an annual Holiday Display in the cafeteria at the Avery Point campus of the University of Connecticut. At the time, four modular layouts (N, HO, O, and G) were setup for 8 weeks and open to the public every weekend during the holiday season. This allowed many new members a chance to join and a place to work and operate on modules.
The largest event for the club has always been Amherst Railway Society’s Big Railroad Hobby Show held at the Big E in West Springfield, MA. The club has participated since the late 1980s and moved to its current space in the Young Building in 1995. We have been located in this building ever since and the show is still our largest display of the year.
The first official summer railfan trip was in 2000 when a small contingent went to the Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia. This proved to be the spring board for future trips with annual summer railfan adventures to the south and midwest.
Prior to the spring of 2001, the club had built a number of small club project modules. At this time it was becoming apparent that the largest previous project, the original Passenger Module, was nearing the end of its lifespan so a new plan was designed. Construction started on the mammoth engineering feat in March of 2001. The entire module set was over 42’ in length and took approximately 5 years to build. It was retired in 2012.
In 2009, the club was honored to be invited to participate in the2009 National Train Show which was held in Hartford, CT. The club displayed a completely renovated layout to the show and was a great event for all.
For the last couple of years, the club is experiencing a bit of a growth spurt with numerous new members joining. We had enough people to warrant another large module building session to add over 80 linear feet to the layout. In 2014, the club made its longest trek even to a train show - the 2014 National Train Show in Cleveland, OH - and managed to win First Place in the Module Group category for our efforts.
