The Texas Western Model Railroad Club was formed in 1997 by a group of railroad modelers meeting in the spare warehouse area of Joe P. Williams Compressor Service at 6807 Anglin Drive, Fort Worth. This group of modelers had primarily been active in other modular-type railroad clubs in the area, but now they were looking for a permanent place to build a layout with excellent track, beautiful scenery, and prototypical operations. Through the interest and generosity of Joe Williams and his family, they were offered the use of the warehouse in which to build their 1/87th scale empire. The model railroad was begun with a membership of about 14 people and work was done on Thursday and Saturday meeting nights. A committee was formed to create a track plan that roughly approximated the Southwest area including Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas with Fort Worth being focused upon in particular. This track plan was created to emulate the prototypical daily operations of real railroads as they served the country in the 1950’s and to allow for interesting model operation sessions in the future.

The club soon found that visitors were overwhelmed by the scope and quality of the miniature railroad and marveled at the accurate, prototypical details that abounded throughout the layout. Visitors asked many questions about why the railroad did certain things and marveled at the re-creation of the Art Deco Texas & Pacific passenger station, freight station, and U.S. Post Office as well as many other buildings. Club members found themselves in the role of historians and educators during Open House events, explaining details about the importance that railroads played in the development of Fort Worth and the surrounding areas. It became apparent that many people were not aware of the contributions the railroads of the Twentieth Century made in our country. As a result of this revelation, the club decided in 2007 to pursue recognition of our organization as a non-profit educational and historical entity. We are currently listed in the State of Texas as a non-profit organization, and effective as of November 2006, were recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 non-profit as well.

After 17 years of building a beautiful layout, and following the untimely passing of our benefactor, Joe Williams, Joe P. Williams Compressor Service discontinued business, and Joe’s family was forced to place the property for sale, necessitating the club’s relocation. Fortunately, the City of Forest Hill recruited the club to stay in the area by offering the local Community Center for long term lease (25 years!) at a very affordable rate with the first option to purchase. The City has proven to be a dedicated partner in supporting the Club’s efforts to build a museum quality layout.

The club has already designed a new track plan for this building and started construction on the new layout. Members are excited about the expanded and more prototypical railroad operations it will offer. When completed, it will feature a fully operational Tower 55 as the center piece of the layout with true North/South and East/West operations. Much of the operations of the Texas & Pacific, MoPac, Santa Fe, Fort Worth & Denver, MKT, Frisco, Southern Pacific, and Frisco in and around Fort Worth, will be represented. The club will effectively model railroad operations from southern Oklahoma to Houston and from east Texas to Abilene. This railroad layout will be even better in many ways and offer true prototype operations in and around Tower 55. The future is very bright for the Texas Western Model Railroad Club indeed!

The current under construcion layout is working to the above plan in multi-phases. Phase I has trains running while more track work, electrical, and scenery completes. Many structures from the old layout now appear on this new Phase I layout. All photos below are from the layout's current Phase I. The Texas Western looks forward to visits from convention attendees during the 2023 Texas Express International NMRA Convention.

This small Cotton Belt yard is just south of Tower 55. The photo would be looking north toward the tower. While not a huge yard, it served as an interchange for freight traffic. The Frisco Black Gold was a joint Katy Frisco operation and served between Tulsa Ok. and Houston Texas. This station is the Houston station which was primarily used by Southern Pacific, so they are moving some of the Texas Chief’s front end cars out to storage tracks. Nothing fancy in logging camps, just basic housing and plenty of good food at the dining hall just across the tracks. I don’t believe OSHA would be very pleased with the guard railess walk ways. Switching in the Boadway Yard today is being done by Southern Pacific today, but is used more by the Cotton Belt. This small yard is still just south of Tower 55 (okay, T55 is still alive and well in our time period). Looks like the 44 tonner found another empty log bunk and is bringing it down to the loading area. Note the fence. Just out of view is a NO TRESPASSING sign from the adjacent land owner who hasn’t decided to allow his trees to be cut. Crossing the diamonds where the SP heads more east, the Texas Flash continues to Dallas. This is the Texas Flash that ran from the Union Station Kansas City to the Dallas Union Station. Passing through the main next to the Frisco 8th Street yard. The switcher is delivering a new batch of car frames to the Arlington GM Assembly plant. This plant builds Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiacs and moves them to the BOP Yard (called BOP because of the three brands of cars built at GM). This logging action in east Texas has stopped briefly for a break and visit with the bosses. These D4 Caterpillars are pulling Hyster arches bringing felled trees from further up on the woods down to be loaded on the log cars. Logging equipment is worked hard and is constantly run through brush, tree branches, and rocks. These Hyster arches have tracks that will actually tumble over and keep going if they come to an obstruction. The steam donkey and spar boom work hard moving the logs from the drop area onto log cars. The MKT NEY yard was a large yard in south Fort Worth, out by the Seminary. It switched many of the grain silos in that area. Today’s switching is being done by one of Alco’s finest. T&P #1034 is taking a cut of cars over to the Lancaster Yard to be added to an outbound train. These 1962 cars are beautiful, I hope one is coming to your garage! The GM plant gets a constant stream of rail deliveries and truck deliveries all day long to keep up with production demands. The Texas Chief is trying to make it into the station before the storm hits today. Not looking promising. Another Alco has duties moving cars in the Frisco 8th Street yard. Looks like engine #4114 has emerged from the roundhouse ready for work also. Both T&P and MoPac have passenger trains ready to carry passengers on their way. Even some clown is waiting on a train. Many logging railroads had to gain altitude up into the mountains and one of the ways was the switch back. The 44 tonner has just stopped and the engineer has dismounted to go through the switch for the next climb.