History

In the beginning SMJ had no own layout. Instead the members met at home, looked at each other's models, chatted, swapped experiences, etc. And if the host of the evening had a layout there was some traffic for sure. The members also arranged trips in order to study real trains and the world around the railways. Railway research took place as well.

Certainly some of the SMJ members were more interested in full size railways than model-making. There were several other in the same mind outside of Stockholm. Anyhow, they had a convention in 1958 and decided to start Svenska Järnvägsklubben (SJK) (Swedish Railway Society).

In 1950 we aquired club rooms of our own with an impressive address in the middle of Stockholm's financial district. The club rooms were located in the cellar of a house called Sagerska Huset (the House Sager) which was owned by one of the club members. The conditions for the club were advantageous. The annual rent for the club rooms was in fact lower than the annual subscription that the houseowner/clubmember paid to the club.

Here we built our first layout. A model of a small line situated about 100 km north of Stockholm in the county of Uppland. The original was just partly finished as a short branch line. Today you can only find some houses, the railway bedding and some remaining bridges.

The funder and the first chairman of SMJ was Count Lagerberg. He was the designer of the SMJ-layout and drew the guidelines of the traffic. At home, Count Lagerberg had a layout of his own. There he developed and tested his ideas about prototype-true traffic sticking to the real railway regulations. Special graphic timetables were used. This is a concept we still use 50 years later on our new layout.

Some old (and odd) details:

• To become a full member of the club all potential members first had to bring a can of roasted semolina. Because the roasting process was extremely smelly and when in consideration with their families the amount was limited to just one can. The roasted semolina was used as bedding of the track. Later on we found some bugs creeping around the bedding. But that's another story...  
• Bristles from the members worn tooth brushes were used as reed in the ponds and streams.  
• The compound used for modelling the landscape was a mixture in which flaked Asbestos was one of the main ingredients. But the unhealthy effects of Asbestos were not known at that time...  
• Another useful component from the household were grains of mustard. It was used as cobblestones in streets on the layout.

Stockholm City, especially the financial district was mainly erected in the 19th century. Some buildings even from the 18th century. Old-fashioned, slightly worn, some in poor condition but still an important part of the history of Stockholm. Tide of architecture in the sixties was away with all the old; away with the history; look forward not backwards. The new fashion, the big scale, the modernisation were the leading stars.

Within 10-15 years a majority of the buildings in the inner City of Stockholm were demolished. A new 'modern' city grew out of the scattered remnants. This fate also struck the House Sager. After long negotiations the club was evicted and presented an acceptable solution where SMJ got new club rooms in the building where we are still operating.

In August 1969 count Lagerberg ended the activities at the old location, tied together the old blue and yellow ribbon which years before was used at the opening ceremony. Finally he locked the main circuit breaker and symbolically threw the key into the river going through Stockholm called "Strömmen".

In the beginning we had an idea of reusing the whole old layout at the new location. But the new location was much larger and had greater possibilities than before.

Logically the club started a Layout Competition (only in Swedish), open to all to find a new layout design. The winning proposal was used as a base in the following drawing job. The main idea of the proposal was a company owned railway somewhere in the mining district in the middle of Sweden. It was supposed to be a long single line between two terminals and with several stations equipped with passing tracks and sidings giving interesting and stressing tasks to the train dispatchers. The traffic should mainly consist of heavy iron ore transportation. Secondly all kinds of products from the forests were another important part of the traffic.

The club should have their own Safety Regulations (SR) close to the one used by Statens Järnvägar at that time. The epoch was set to an autumn day 1955. In that time you could still find steam locomotives traffic as well as diesel locos and electric driven locos.

The SMJ of today has a large showroom of 183 m². The dominating part of the club rooms is of course used for the railway layout. The drivers are placed on a small balcony from where every driver can handle their train all over the entire layout. Shunting is possible locally at the stations. Behind the drivers you find the diagram (control board) of the interlocking installation. Today the layout is completely digitilised. Part of the line, especially around the underground fiddle-yard/storage-sidings, is computer controlled.

In the club rooms you can also find a workshop, a storage room, a small library and a small cafe (called Café Bakfickan).

The new layout is fully fictitious. But all structures are true copies of real buildings, factory-plants etc. By doing this, we have in a model made an optimum of the mining district, which suits our traffic conception very well. All communities on the line have been given names based on real names upon name place research. The places are given a background history, number of inhabitants, number and kinds of industries, workshops, schools etc.

Our model railway is called Saxnora Mohällarne Railway (sw. Järnväg) running between the two terminals. The railway has the signature SMJ. This signature happens to be the same as the initials in Stockholms ModellJärnvägsklubb (SMJ). What a coincidence!

True of the period, the line is closed from the minefields at Saxnora down to Farsarvet junction. The small amount of passenger traffic from Saxnora is carried out by bus.

The layout as well as the private line has the nickname Ekensholmsbanan (the Ekensholm Line).