Here are some HO clubs in the Portland area.
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad
http://www.cgmrc.com/
Willamette Model Railroad Club
15711 Se 90th Ave Clackamas OR, 97015
(503)655-2744
Here is more info about them as they are close to you.
Here's some more specific help on how to find our model railroad club:
Our street address is
15711 S.E. 90th
Clackamas, OR 97015
Plunk that into Google maps and you should be able to find us. Come by and visit.
Meetings are on Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30pm in the basement of the Clackamas Community Center. Business meetings are the first Thursday of the month.
As for the dig-out question, yes that phase is all done. We poured the last of the new floor last August.
Below is the current state of things, updated from our September membership flyer:
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Our club’s goal is to enhance our members’ model railroading experience by following plausible prototype operating practices on a layout featuring “scenic fidelity” (i.e. no spaghetti-bowl track plan), all housed in a freshly remodeled room.
We are now building our new 1,800 sq. ft. HO scale railroad to support prototypical operations. Our freelance railroad, the Columbia, Cascade and Western, is set in 1979 and runs from Toledo, OR on the Pacific coast up over the Cascade mountains via Detroit, continuing east thru Bend and has friendly connections with the Western Pacific and Union Pacific. We've also discussed the plausibility of connecting with the Milwaukee Road via trackage rights and hosting some MILW run-throughs.
The new layout will be state-of-the-art and takes full advantage of contemporary layout design and construction practices, such as DCC, wide aisles, effective lighting, continuous staging, and efficient yard trackage. In addition to providing formal operations with a long point-to-point run (587 ft.), it will also accommodate continuous running for informal operations. Planned operations include through freights, unit trains, way freights, local switchers, and several yard jobs.
As of October 2009, remodeling is complete in our 30 x 60 room and all layout lighting is installed. Benchwork construction is well underway, track is complete in the community of Tallman and expanding timetable eastward as fast as benchwork will allow. Current trackwork construction has reached the location of our large on-layout yard in Lebanon. Layout wiring is about to start.
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We're trying to do something a bit different and nurture a club whose focus is prototypical operations in western Oregon in 1979, not running whatever equipment a member wants to bring down for formal operating sessions. We feel that the sight of, for example, a GG1 pulling a Pennsy passenger train would be sufficiently jarring to disrupt the "suspension of the real-world for a few hours" we are striving for. Of course members will be free to come down on informal non-operations nights (work permitting) and on non-club nights and weekends to run whatever equipment they want, as long as it has metal wheels. (Personally, that's when I plan to bring down by 14-car GN Empire Builder to let it stretch its legs on a club sized layout vs. chasing its tail on my home pike.)
We're happy to welcome people new to the hobby or those wishing to learn how prototypical operations can enhance your enjoyment of the hobby. But we also realize that prototypical operations are not everyone's cup of tea and if someone is not going to be comfortable with track warrants and card-order operations, then we may not be a good fit for them.
Good Luck,
Brandon
