Southern California's award-winning HO scale modular traction railroad!

The Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) was founded in October 1995 by five trolley modelers. The SCTC is a modular group that operates electric railway vehicles from live overhead wires. The scale used is HO scale, which is 87 scale feet to one actual foot or 1/87 scale. Initially, the club met at the All Aboard Model Railroad Emporium in Torrance, California. The first three modules that the club built were located in that hobby shop until November 1996. After this time, the club met in members homes for about two years until they acquired their own clubhouse in a two-car garage in Baldwin Hills. In April 1997, the club made its first public appearance with five modules at the South Bay Botanic Gardens in Palos Verdes, CA. Since that time, the club has displayed their modules several times a year at public shows mainly in the Southern California area. Most of the club modules are four feet long and all have a double-track main line with code 83 rail. Originally, the club completely rebuilt an old trailer that had been donated to the club to carry eleven modules and stored this trailer at the clubhouse. Within two years, the club had more than the eleven modules that trailer could transport, so a second trailer was acquired. By the end of 2007, the club had made 70 appearances from Las Vegas, NV to San Diego, CA and had added an operational subway train module controlled by Digital Command Control. Currently, the current display consists of twenty-three modules arranged in a 16' by 26' rectangle.

Always seeking the unusual, the club added a special lift-up module to avoid the dreaded "duck-under", the "Rush Limbaugh High School" module, which gets all types of comments, trolley coaches with illuminated headlights powered from live overhead wire and a new downtown "City Hall" trolley loop. The major downtown intersection was recently revised.

The SCTC currently has members from as far north as Pasadena, CA; as far south as Laguna, CA; as far east as Covina, CA and as far west as Tokyo, Japan. The club has a clubhouse in Baldwin Hills and members can be found there most Tuesday afternoons and most Sundays working on modules or rolling stock. All cars are converted from the conventional two-rail operation to operate from overhead wire via trolley poles, and are certified on the club test track to operate at 20 to 48 scale miles per hour at 7.0 volts prior to public operation. All rails on the surface operations of the SCTC modules are grounded so two-rail operation is NOT possible. For more information, please contact the club via email.

The club is proud to report that they received Honorable Mention in the Group Module Contest and the NMRA Design Preservation Models (DPM) City Classics Award at the 2008 National Train Show (NMRA/PSR Anaheim Special 2008) in Anaheim.

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