About the Club
The official name of the club is the Brighton and Presqu’ile Railway Association. The purpose of this organization is to provide fellowship with all types of rail enthusiasts and to have fun with trains.
We rent a large room from the Trinity St. Andrews Church located at 58 Prince Edward Street, Brighton ON. This room contains the club’s large DCC controlled sectional HO scale layout as well as several smaller travelling layouts. We usually meet every Wednesday night starting 1900hr to run trains and work on our layouts. The third Wednesday of the month is our business meeting night. Once a month during the winter we try to hold an operating session night on the layout. You are welcome to come to visit the club on any non-business meeting night to see what we have to offer and to find out more about our activities.
We jointly host with the Belleville Model Train Club the two-day Quinte Region Model Train Show every December to raise funds for each club and promote model railroading to the community. In addition, we take our travelling layouts to shows at other locations and twice a year hold an open house for the public to see our large layout. Currently, a group of members is building 3 new Free-mo modules to take to shows.
You are welcome to come to visit us during any regular non-business meeting night to see what we have to offer and learn more about the club. We are happy to show you around.
Club History
The club can trace its beginning to November 1980 when a model railway display was put in the window of Martin’s stationery store to celebrate Model RR month. The display included a signup sheet for people to indicate if they were interested in forming the club. This led to around a dozen interested people holding the first club meeting at a private residence in February 1981.
During the summer of 1981, the club chose its official name and held elections for officers. It also bought its first layout and rented a room on the second floor of the Brighton Steadman store to set it up in.
In 1984 members decided to each build a module for a travelling layout and in 1985 they hosted the club’s first train show. It was a one-day affair located in the basement of the Brighton town hall. From 1986 to 1993 the club hosted a one or two day show at the Brighton arena. Starting in 1994 the club joined with the Belleville Model Train Club to co-host the Quinte Region Train Show which, except for COVID years is an annual December event.
The club began building a second modular layout in 1989 which in 1991 became the club’s travelling layout and replaced the one in the club room as well.
In May 2002 the club room lease was not renewed and the modular layout was sold. The lack of a club location was short-lived as the club was able to rent a room at the old Brighton Township Hall starting November 2002. At this location, we built a large HO scale layout, purchased a Digitrax DCC control system, and held many public open houses.
In May of 2009, we had to move once again resulting in the dismantling of this large layout. From this time until we moved to our current location in May 2012, we built modules compliant with the Free-mo standard. This allowed members to build a module at home and then join up with each other when we could find space. We also could join up with several neighbouring clubs that used the same standard. Our current layout contains over 25 Free-mo sections and it is set up at our current location. Here are a few pictures of our layout and club room.
