The Society was founded in 1947 to cater for people interested in Model engineering and all related activities which includes model locomotives, trains, traction engines, stationary engines, model boats, yachts, barges, and general engineering and technical subjects.
The Society has always catered equally for model boating as well as model engineering enthusiasts. In the early days when electric motors were large and inefficient, and small IC engines rather expensive, the main motive power for model boats was steam, so it was natural that it should be strongly linked to model engineering. In the '50's and '60's members of the Society were in the forefront of hydroplane development and running in the UK.
It was nearly 30 years before the Society was able to build a track, located in a school in Harpenden, which served the members well for over 20 years. After being moved out of this site we had a couple of years without a track but in 2001 we got a new one.
Our activities center around meetings held on the second Wednesday of each month in St Albans when we generally have a talk on some modeling or engineering topic. The friendly atmosphere at these meetings seems to be main attraction for our membership and allows people to be involved who do not own a boat or locomotive and have little time for traditional modeling. The evening starts with a bit of club business at 7.45, followed by the first part of the talk for about 50 minutes. Then we have a tea/coffee/biscuit break for 15 minutes, during which people are able to chat, meet new people, solve each other's problems, get advice, browse the club library, take a closer look at models brought in for the talk, all of which has proved very popular. With an average of 50 people attending the meetings this is a sizeable gathering which few other clubs can muster, and comes as a surprise to some of our visiting speakers. This is followed by the second half of the talk, or perhaps another speaker, until 10pm.
Each month the members receive a Gazette with pictures and articles as well as club news and details of events. Typically about 12 pages long it provides a major contact point for members who are not able to get to the meetings and is also circulated to the editors of the major modeling press to keep them aware of our activities.
Watford
Hemel Hempstead
Harpenden
Members come from the whole area for over 10 miles around, with some living even further away, and only about half our membership actually live in St Albans, hence the use of 'and District' in our name. There are some other clubs within the area, notably North London Society of Model Engineers and Harrow and Wembley Society of Model Engineers and we have some joint members.
Most years we hold an exhibition, in the autumn, which both gives members the chance to show off their latest models, to enter the competitions for the various club cups and trophies, and raises some funds for the Society. We don't just show off our own models but are joined by the Luton Model Boat Club and North London Society of Model Engineers on a regular basis, and also have on display samples of other activities such as woodcarving, Meccano, garden railways, 0 and 00 model railways, boat pond, portable rail track, tool shop, modeling bits, etc. For more details see the Exhibition pages.
We go up to the track once a month to run the club steam and electric engines.. Apart from the regular days for just chuffing around we have special Barbeque days in the summer which also gives the boating fraternity and others who do not have a working locomotive the chance to try their hand at driving a real live steam loco. for more details see the Track page.
In Verulamium park, in St Albans, there is a large lake and a smaller pond. We have informal meetings each month on the pond, and then in the summer we have larger regattas, sometimes with visiting clubs and competitions, and sometimes get permission to use the larger lake. Craft on the water are mostly electric these days, with some steam and sail boats. Some people cheat by putting electric motors in their sailboats. Oh yes we even have had a bireme and trireme. On August bank holiday we play host to the MPBA who hold straight running and hydroplane regattas.
Every now and then we have club outings. These have included visits to various museums and trips on paddle steamers and preserved steam ships. We went out on the SS Sheildhall which is a preserved steam powered tanker based in Southampton which allows you to visit the engine and boiler rooms during a trip round the Solent of several hours duration, another trip was to the Bluebell railway, then it was back on the water in a paddle-steamer after looking round the Chatham dockyard museum.
As a member of the Chiltern Model Railway Association, which is a grouping of the model railway and similar clubs in the Chiltern area, we attend the CMRA exhibition in the Arena, St Albans, in January each year. This exhibition concentrates on 0 and 00 gauge model railways but we attend to show people what the larger scales look like. A 7ft long Britannia is sometimes a bit too much for the regular smaller gauge afficionados but the garden gauges of 16mm and G1 attract a lot of interest.
For many years the Society has attended the Model Engineering Exhibition in its various venues, from Wembley, Alexandra Palace, Olympia, and Sandown Park, and has frequently been awarded the trophy for the best club stand. More recently we have attended the exhibitions at Alexandra Palace (ex Wembley, ex Pickets Lock) and smaller shows such as at RAF Halton until that show stopped running.