MGRS Layout at the Great Falls Spring Show on April 30th in Topsham from 10 am to 3pm

MGRS will have a layout at the Great Falls Spring Show on April 30th in Topsham from 10am-3pm. The show is at the Mt Ararat High School Gym, 73 Eagles Way (off Route 201), Topsham, ME 04086.

We will have John Middleton's modular switching layout, the Cape Porpoise Industrial Railroad.  And there will be a place for members to talk to visitors about MGRS. Please come to the show, see the layout, have a chance to see your old friends and make some new ones.

We need some help with the show. The three modules, one 8' and two 3', need to be moved from Kennebunkport to Topsham and set up on Friday, April 29th, and back again after the show. If you can help, please contact Sam at 865-4467.

MGRS Open House and Annual Meeting set for Saturday, July 16 - please save the date

The MGRS Summer Open House and Annual Meeting will take place at Carl & Pat Churchill's, 82 Carll Road in Buxton on Saturday, July 16.

This Open  House is a chance for members to meet, run trains, have a great lunch, visit the Circus, bid on good stuff at the Auction, and elect officers for the upcoming year.

The Quilt Raffle will be back along with our two famous Auctioneers, so be ready to bid!!

MGRS Events Listing Updated

The MGRS Events Listing is up to date as of today. 

MGRS Events are shown in red. 

Other events include train-related activity in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Future dates are included for Amherst, York, and the East Coast Large Scale/All Scales shows into 2017.

Future Greenberg shows are not announced until late summer.

The Friendship and Gratitude Trains - G-Scale Friendship Train Car Available

This story begins with the French "40 and 8" wooden boxcars, built to carry 40 men or 8 horses. They were well known to American veterans of WW I and WW II. 

Maine Merci Train Car at Boothbay Railway Village

The 40 and 8 society for veterans was formed after World War I and was associated with the American Legion. More information can be found at  http://www.fortyandeight.org/ 

Last year at Togus I met a 99 year old veteran of WWII who remembered riding on them during his service in France as a tank driver.  He also remembered growing up in Maine when they did not plow the roads between towns in the winter because everything came in by train.

                                                                                                                                                         

The Friendship Train was the brainchild of columnist Drew Pearson just after WWII. It send 270 freight car loads of donated supplies from America to the children of France and Italy  in 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Train

France responded in 1949 with the Merci Train of 49 40-and-8 boxcars, one for each U.S. State plus 1 to be shared by DC and Hawaii, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merci_Train

MTH issued  several Friendship Train cars in 2011.  The O-Scale versions are available on the internet under stock numbers 20-93522, 20-93523, 20-93524, and 20-92331.

The G-Scale version is New York Central and the link is http://mthtrains.com/70-74072. MTH Club Members get a discount if they order and pay by phone