Welcome to the Los Angeles Division, NMRA
Do you love trains? So do we! We are a group of model railroaders in Ventura and Los Angeles counties who share our love of trains and modeling by educating people and promoting the hobby of model railroading, helping all modelers - from beginners to experts - build their skills and capabilities, and holding in-person and virtual events.
Please look around the site to learn more about the Los Angeles Division, the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA), local rail-related museums, groups, and hobby shops, and upcoming local, regional and national model railroad events.
Spotlight On The San Juan Central
As a teenaged aspiring model railroader in the 1980s, Malcom Furlow was my idea of the ultimate model railroader. The first time I saw his work in the November 1983 Model Railroader magazine I was blown away. The level of detail and artistry in his models were unlike anything I had seen before and were what I aspired to be able to do one day.
A few months ago, I visited the California State Railroad Museum (CSRM) in Sacramento for the first time and was thrilled to see Furlow’s San Juan Central as part of the "The Magic of Scale Model Railroading” exhibit organized by the CSRM and National Model Railroad Association (NMRA). Seeing this layout in person let me better appreciate how well he captured both small details and the overall feel of the place in a small space.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, in the early 1980s Malcolm Furlow published a series of articles in Model Railroader explaining how he designed and built a new Hon3 scale layout, the San Juan Central. The fictional railroad was based on the narrow gauge railroads of the Rocky Mountains and Desert Southwest and made me feel like I was really there.
Here are a few photos of the exhibit from my visit. The quality isn’t great as I took them with my phone, but as the saying goes, “The best camera is the one you have with you.”
Text and photos by the LA Division Webmaster, Mark Fischer,
We need your help! If you have photos of a model you are proud of, a cool train-related thing you saw in the area or on a trip, or have some interesting news, please contact us so we can share it with the rest of the world.
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Upcoming Events
Some of the upcoming railroad-related events over the next month or two include:
- January 3, 2026 - Christmas Tree Lane Model Train Society Open House, Altadena
- January 3 - Glendale Model Railroad Society Open House
- January 4 - Toy Train Operating Society (TTOS)/Southwestern Division Meet, Arcadia
- January 5 - Glendale Model Railroad Society Open House
- January 10 - Trains & Coffee, Yorba Linda
- January 24 - LA Division, NMRA Open House, Burbank
- January 25 - TTOS/Southern Pacific (SP) Division Meet, Anaheim
- January 31 & February 1 - Great Train Show, Ventura
- February 1 - TTOS/Southwestern Division Meet, Arcadia
- February 14 & 15 - Great Train Show, Costa Mesa
- February 22 - TTOS/SP Division Meet, Anaheim
- February 28 - Roundhouse Gang Swap Meet, San Bernardino
The Los Angeles Division
We are a group of more than 200 railroad modelers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in southern California. We are one of 150 local groups, called "divisions", of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) across the world. The Los Angeles Division is part of the Pacific Southwest Region of the NMRA, which includes three other divisions covering Southern California, Arizona, and Southern Nevada.
We hold a monthly virtual meeting on the first Thursday of every month at 7pm. These informal "Sand House Chats" are a round-table where members can share information and talk about whatever interests them.
All Division members receive the "LA Division Coupler," the Division's quarterly newsletter via email.
In addition to our website, we share information on multiple social media sites.
- The Los Angeles Division, NMRA Facebook page (a public page that anyone can "like" to follow)
- The NMRA Los Angeles Division - A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization Facebook group (a private group for Division members)
- The Los Angeles Division, NMRA Instagram page (Coming Soon!)
The NMRA
The National Model Railroad Association is a 501(c)(3) not for profit educational organization that was founded in 1935. It is a world-wide organization with over 16,000 active members, associates, families and clubs dedicated to the hobby of scale model railroading in all its facets, supporting a hobby of many diverse interests that all relate to the greater world of trains and railroads.