 The San Diego S-Gaugers is a tax exempt 501(C)(3) association of model railroaders founded January 19, 2008, in San Diego, California, dedicated to a three-part mission: 1. Promotion of S-Gauge model railroading 2. Education about S-Gauge model railroading, about model railroading in general, and about railroading in general. 3. Having fun in the process To contact the club, email sandsgaugers@gmail.com. Our clubhouse at Grossmont Center remains closed, but ...
In cooperation with Federal, State, and County guidelines, and in the interest of safeguarding the health of our members and visitors, we are still closed, but: We have begun our preparations and will open as soon as county health regulations permit. It appears that the soonest that can possibly happen is the end of March, so we plan to be ready to open the first week of April. Check back weekly. We miss you! And we’ve been getting email messages that you miss us too. Thank you! That means a lot to us. In addition to missing contact with all of our
friends, being closed for so long has hurt us financially. Your support during this closure would really be appreciated, and your donations are tax-deductible. You can mail a check to us at: San Diego S-Gaugers 5500 Grossmont Center Drive Suite 181 La Mesa, CA 91942
Thank you in advance for your generous support. But in the meantime, the trains are still running. Just push the button outside the window.  200,000 times! On Saturday, February 29, 2020, Orion McCurdy pushed the button to run the train on our Liberty Loop window layout and got a big surprise! It was the 200,000th time the button had been pushed.   Got trains?
Got a box of old trains in the garage? Bring them in and see if they still run. We have a test track not only for S scale trains, but also for Sn3, HO, and O Scale trains.
Do you have childhood memories of American Flyer trains? Did you convert
to HO or N due to space limitations? Are your eyes and hands finding
smaller scales difficult to work with? Take another look at S Scale trains. Coming Soon: John Constans' Sn3 Westside Lumber Layout  Little did we know that six years later, his widow would donate it to our club in his memory. We have transported it to the side room of our clubhouse, reinforced it, and created a new mount for it. We are making great progress in refurbishing it for public display. Click the picture to learn more about it and our progress.
Our Latest Layout Tour Videos The visitor's view: And here's a video of the layout from the engineer's viewpoint:
Come visit us in La Mesa's Grossmont Center.
We're open yearround from noon to 6:00 PM on Saturdays and Tuesdays except for holidays.    See below for directions to come visit us. As you enter, you are greeted by girder bridge and military aircraft museum modules on the front of our big modular layout.
Click the picture below for a view of each of the modules in the layout.
 To the right is the first of our three window layouts, Liberty Loop, named for our previous home in San Diego's Liberty Station shopping center.  Raulf
lettered the club's American Models Baldwin diesel locomotive for it. Click the picture to see more pictures and the story of why and how the layout was built.
Click below for a video tour of Liberty Loop: To your left is our second window layout. Depending on the time of year, you will see one of four seasonal layouts. At Halloween, Christmas, and Easter we have a loop or track around a seasonal ceramic village.
Click the picture to see more pictures and the story of why and how the layout was built.
 Because we have a buildings for only three seasons on the seasonal layout, Mark suggested that we build a classical 1950s American Flyer
layout to display the roots of our S gauge history. Click the picture to see more pictures and a video of it.  We named it
Streeterville in honor of Burdette Streeter who donated his collection
to the club.
 In the alcove window to your far right is the Lego Window Layout provided by the L-Scale Museum.
Over the years, Michael Todd, curator of the L-Gauge Museum, has brought in a variety of Lego creations, most recently Lego Train layouts, to enhance our clubhouse. To see more about each of them, click the picture or "The Lego Window Layouts" link in the sidebar menu at the left.
 If you happen to come by when we're not open, push the button outside the window and the trains on all three window layouts will run for about a minute.
 Our Timesaver game  The Timesaver is a game/puzzle created by John Allen and published in Model Railroader Magazine in 1972.
It comprises two identical mini-switching yards connected by a short track that holds only one car.
Each
yard has five spurs each long enough for two or three freight cars and a
run-around with space for one car on one side and two on the other.
Each yard has a switch engine and five freight cars scattered around in the yard.
The objective is to move the cars around into some specified final position.
The person who does it in the shortest time wins.
Alternatively, it can be played as a cooperative two-player game where the final position for some cars is in the other yard.
For more information and pictures of the Timesaver, click the picture or the "Timesaver" link in the sidebar menu at the left.
Member Projects
Dale has embarked on a project to create freight cars that are more
interesting and realistic than those manufactured by Gilbert and other
manufacturers,
and many of the buildings on the layouts were built by club members. Click the picture for a web page dedicated to member projects like this. 
Meetings and Other Events
The club has monthly meetings, at 10:00AM to noon, generally on the third Tuesday of the month (see calendar of events below).
At the January meeting each year, we hold the election of officers and collection of annual dues.  At the club's June 2016 meeting, Wes Noel demonstrated the proper application of Bullfrog Snot to increase the traction of an engine's drive wheels, and hence to increase the number of cars it will pull. Click the picture to see the video of this clinic; more clinics will be added as we shoot videos of them.
 2021 Calendar of Events January 19 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting January 28 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse February 16 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting February 25 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse March 16 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting March 25 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse April 20 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting April 24 noon - 4:00PM Lego Build Event April 29 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse May 18 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting May 27 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse June 22 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting June 24 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse June 26 noon - 4:00PM Lego Build Event July 20 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting July 29 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse August 17 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting August 26 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse August 28 noon - 4:00PM Lego Build Event September 21 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting September 30 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse October 19 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting October 23 noon - 4:00PM Lego Build Event October 28 10:00AM - 3:00PM Workday at the clubhouse October 31 noon - 6:00PM We plan to be open for Halloween November 16 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting December 18 noon - 4:00PM Lego Build Event December 21 10:00AM - noon Regular Monthly Meeting How to Find Us
You can see it from the freeway. Take the Grossmont Center exit and turn left (north). Enter through the portico next to the Reading Cinemas, between Jamba Juice and Panda Express.   Visit Count for this page
May
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