Ramsbottom Model Railway Club’s Officials and Members are as follows:-

Chairman :- Alan Garside

Treasurer :- Keith Cragg

Secretary :- Daniel Jones

Members :- Adrian Hall, Peter Hankinson and Alex King.

Past Members :- Ron Anderton, Kevin Blades, Philip Davidson, Harry Dennis (RIP), Roger Dennis, Paul Ellis, Roy Ellis, David Flood, Paul Gregory, Mark Harrison, Chris Hill, Harry Kitchen, Matthew Milburn, Brian Morris, Ray Price, Roger Wilson (RIP).

Ramsbottom Model Railway Club was established in the Summer of 1978 by four local postmen who thought it would be a good idea to try and get people with similar interests to come together and try and form a group. In doing so an advert was placed in the Bury Times News Paper and Ramsbottom Library looking for other people to form a model railway club.

The first meeting was held in our chairman Alan Garside’s house in Ramsbottom in September 1978 with his back room full of people interested in joining together to form the club. It was here that Alan Garside spoke up and said that they should base the layout on Ramsbottom as it where they all mostly lived and was easy enough to get to for information and research without the need to travel very far.

The first AGM was held on the 12th September 1978 where 12 members were present. At this AGM the election of officers were chosen. The first chairman was to be Harry Dennis who is still a member to this day and was one of the founding members, Secretary was Norman Piper, Treasurer was to be Alan Garside who is now our chairman. Other items that came up at the first AGM was the Subscription rates ( which were £5 per annum plus 50p per week), Membership (The need for more members), Rent (at the time the club rented the building and were trying to agree a rent fee), Meetings (It were agreed that the club would hold weekly meetings of Tuesday and Thursday at 7.30pm), Publicity and Information(They had agreed to contact the Bury Times to get an article published and also contact the Ramsbottom Historical Society), Layout (A draft layout plan was produced by Adrian Hall and that he could get hold of baseboards to start building) and Administration (A bank account was opened to which the subscriptions could be placed in, to make a constitution and rules and to produce a list of members).

Our first club house was based in the attic of the Old Stubbins School located on Bolton Road North in Stubbins Village during December 1978 but 3 months later the school was sold and was due to be demolished when Harry Dennis came across our present home at the Old Patmos Hall on Bury New Road. (see below)

This building was the old Sunday school to the church of the same name that was located on the corner of Peel Brow and Bury New Road but for some reason this building didn’t follow the church which was demolished in the 1970’s. The Club was able to purchase the building outright due to the members and friends all helping to collect waste paper and take it down to the local paper mill which at that time paid people for waste paper. This building must be over 100+ years old as has been owned by the club for the last 30+ years. The building has a small porch which houses the electricity cupboard and storage space for our open day signs. The main room has the layout which takes up most of the space but have had 30+ people in there at one time (17-08-2010), This room also has the brew making facilities, a sink, work stations and more storage space around the back and under the layout. In the north west corner of the building is the most important part of the building…..the toilet.

Ever since then members have come and gone, some going onto better things and some even returning for a second stint (Dan and Alex). Members came from all walks of life most were postmen but have had Firemen, Students, an electrician, a computer technician, a teacher and even a salesman!

We currently have 6 members which a usual turn out of 5 members during a Thursday evening. We are always looking to recruit more members to help us maintain and run the layout on a regular basis. Our age range varies from 30 – 60+ so we don’t have any limits.

If you would like to pay us a visit and see if you would like to join then get in touch or just turn up one Thursday Evening. We are a very warm and friendly group and are so laid back that we could fall over.

We are based in Ramsbottom about 2 minutes from Ramsbottom Train Station and have our meetings every Thursday 7.30 till 11pm

On the 17th August 2010 we held our first Open Evening for more than 15 years. This was partly to do with the completion of our extension of the layout which now shows the industrial side in Ramsbottom on Kenyon Street including Mills, Factories and Terrace Houses.