North Texas Garden Railroad Club – Objective

The objective of the organization shall be:

• To educate the members and public about railroads and garden railroading.

• To educate and expand the knowledge of garden railroading.

Board Members

President

Thomas Lytle – Term expires 2027

Vice President At Large

Victor Jones – Term expires 2028

Vice President At Large

Ron Natinsky – Term expires 2028

Vice President At Large

John Hainer – Term expires 2027

Secretary

Patrick Miller – Term expires 2027

Treasurer

Pete Dahlberg – Term expires 2028

Webmaster/Editor

Ron Trees – Term expires 2028

Contact:  info@ntgrc.org

Articles of Incorporation

By-Laws

Policies and Precedents

Membership

Dues are due in January.

Family Membership = $25.00 annually
(After October 31st, new members will be considered
paid through December of the following year. Renewing memberships
cover the current membership year only.)

Lifetime Membership = $250.00 one time

To pay membership dues via Zelle – We are registered as: ntgrcpayments@gmail.com

Those applying for or renewing membership should complete or download an application. If downloaded, mail your completed application and dues to:

North Texas Garden Railroad Club
4519 Willow Bend Dr.
Arlington, TX 76017

You may also submit your application and pay your dues at any club meeting.
Please make your check payable to NTGRC.

State of the Club – 2026

MEMBERSHIP

Our current membership is 87 members.  Four members did not renew for 2026.

FINANCIALS

Our financial situation is provided at monthly meetings, and we do not disclose this information in public forums.  The Board is confident, however, that the Club is in a healthy financial state.  The Club’s principal assets include our trailer, trains & track, Pola buildings, and power controllers. We maintain a sufficient balance to self-insure these assets in case of loss. Members may come to a home meeting, or contact Treasurer Pete Dahlberg, if they have questions concerning our finances.

EVENTS

1. Plano Event Center. We participated in two events at this venue this past year: the Fall Plano Train Show in September 2025, and the Dallas Area Train Show in January 2026.  Both events had record paid attendance and all tables were sold out.  We had our own room for both shows.
2. Home Meetings. We had six throughout this year (including our Christmas gathering).
3. Hospital Train Runs. We held two this year, one at Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas, and one at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, plus a special Christmas train run at Cook Children’s.  We are scheduled to also do one at each of these children’s hospitals next year.
4. Clark Gardens Train Fest. Labor Day weekend our club sets up our largest layout for train runs under the big tent on Saturday and Sunday. (We set up at 10 AM on Friday, followed by a no host dinner in Mineral Wells at the Mesquite Pit.)  Most of us stay at the Mineral Wells Best Western with special lower rates if you mention Clark Garden rates when you book your reservation.  Book now – they sell out.  940-325-2270

5. Union Pacific Employee Day. This event was not held this past year, but will be held this year in October.
6. Volunteering around the area. We are a club that volunteers our time and knowledge to expand the world of trains in many ways:
   1. Each year, our members volunteer at Texas Discovery Gardens throughout the year on weekends to run trains installed by the hard work and imagination of Club and Board member Ron Natinsky.
   2. During the State Fair of Texas, many Club members volunteer every day of the Fair to run trains at Texas Discovery Gardens from 10 AM until 6PM. Patrick Miller volunteered for a number of those shifts last year.  We need more volunteers during the Fair for this Fall: 25 September to 18 October.  Snag FREE admission to the Fair and FREE Parking.  You can volunteer directly at their website which will be set up immediately prior to the Fair.
   3. There is the group of members that meet every Tuesday morning for breakfast at the R & K Restaurant, 2950 Ft Worth Highway, Hudson Oaks, TX 76087. From there, they proceed to meet at about 9:30 at Clark Gardens and re-group at the Train House.  They review the repair log and ensure smooth running trains for the entire week when the Gardens are open to the public. When the Gardens are closed (middle of winter and middle of summer) they remove and replace track on the five outside loops and do maintenance to infrastructure.
   4. Members also volunteer in Chama NM at the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad during the summer.  They rebuild buildings, railroad signage, train rolling stock and many other tasks.  They also train as a docent.  Then they get to ride the trains all day if they want. If you wish to learn more, ask Pete Dahlberg or Johnny Nelson.
   5. Our members also work at a hotel that displays and runs trains: the Gaylord Texan Resort Hotel in Grapevine.  Though they are paid, our members maintain the trains and ensure that they can run 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. They do a special Christmas display starting at the end of November through December when the ICE! Show is there.
   6. Another place you can find our members is Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington.  There they run the live steam train rides when the park is open.

All of the above introduce trains, especially model trains, to young and old, boys and girls alike.  It plants the seeds of going into model trains, whatever the scale.

HOW DO WE HELP?

At Christmas, we gave away 42 Toy Wooden train sets to Toys for Tots.  Train and track, no batteries needed, just imagination.

Then at each Train Show and at the Clark Gardens Train Fest we give starter trains that have been refurbished.  They go to young families with tiny ones that are just starting out in trains.  The starter trains come compete with train, track and a power controller, all ready to go.

We gave out one at the Fall Plano Train show, one at Clark Garden’s Train Fest and two at the Dallas Area Train show.

THIS IS MY LAST YEAR AS YOUR PRESIDENT.

It was an honor and it has been fun. As the dictator I am, I have appointed myself President Emeritus. When I joined the Club, we had maybe six active members.  Then two years later I was “railroaded” to become your President.  I agreed, but I warned the Board that changes would have to be made.  And many were.

I wanted to actively get more members, and then more younger members and more women members (as the primary member). We grew over the years.  From about 20 to 90 members. We added the ‘track sign-up sheet’ to ensure all got to run trains at train runs as we grew in numbers. We added many younger families and women as the primary member. There were subtle changes also: changing ‘holiday gathering’ to ‘Christmas gathering’; having to try different and new things and sometimes returning to some old (done that before) things, like using a restaurant for our Christmas gathering as we were too big to be in a private home.  We added home open house meetings, and night home meetings for viewing lights in the dark of the trains and layout.  We added two additional rolls of carpet and over 100 feet of track to our assets (straight and turn-outs) now with sidings.  We added lots of buildings for our layout at our shows and other train runs.  Before, our layouts were mostly just trains and track.

Respectfully Submitted

Thomas A. Lytle
President
June 7, 2026

Videos

Vard Moore’s train circling his ‘water feature’ at our annual meeting at his Dallas home, June 7, 2026.

Trains running at Edi & David St John’s NTGRC May monthly meeting in Norman Oklahoma.

Jade Wolf’s live steam trains running at Edi & David St Johns’ monthly NTGRC meeting, 3 May, 2026, Norman Oklahoma.

Our April 2026 monthly NTGRC meeting in Cleburne – John and Tina Pollock’s layout featuring trains, a boat, a bus, and a longhorn.

Boat and bus automation at John Pollock’s layout, Cleburne, Texas, April, 2026

Jade Wolf and Dan Phillips run their live steam trains at John Pollock’s layout in Cleburne, Texas, April, 2026

Our March 2026 monthly NTGRC meeting at Jack Huffman’s home in Fort Worth – trains running on a pleasant Sunday afternoon and evening.

Trains running at Victor and Lawanda Jones’ February 2026 home meeting. Three types of propulsion this afternoon: live steam (Jade Wolf’s train), battery power (host Victor Jones’ train), and track power (Dan Phillips’ train).

Extended video of the Club layout at the Dallas Area Train Show at the Plano Events Center on January 17-18, 2026.

Club Member Jack Schroeder produced this time-lapse video of the Members assembling our G-scale layout for the Dallas Area Train Show at the Plano Events Center on January 16, 2026.

Dallas Area Train Show Layout, January 17-18, 2026, Plano, Texas

Cook Children’s Hospital Christmas Layout, Fort Worth, Texas, December 16, 2025 [Video courtesy of John Hainer]

Live steam running at the Texas Discovery Garden’s layout, Dallas, Texas, November 2, 2025

Fall Plano Train Show Layout, September 27-28, 2025, Plano, Texas

Clark Gardens’ Trainfest layout – August 30-31, 2025, Weatherford, Texas

Scottish Rite Hospital layout – August 5, 2025, Dallas, Texas

Cook Childrens Hospital layout – July 11, 2025, Fort Worth, Texas

Club History

The Early Days

From George Najar

In 1976 we really did not have a club. It was like minded people who liked LGB trains. There were three people that met in 1976 and discussed getting together for shows. It was not until much later that the idea of a club was desired. I would guess the “Club” was formed in the early to mid 80s but that is a guess. Charles Alspach and Dan Carey were very active in the early club. The way it worked back then was at a show we sent out a list for people to sign who wanted to be contacted when and where the next show was to take place. Brian and or I would call the list and let people know about the train setup. As the list got larger Brian would take Dallas and I would take West of Dallas. We borrowed LBG track, engine, and rolling stock from Bobby Halls. We would sign it out on Friday and sign it back in on Monday. We had signs up for Bobby Halls so people would know where to buy the LGB equipment.

The three early adapters were:

• Paul Kepner II
• Brian Lingle
• George Najar

From Ron Greene

1. Joined 1993.
2. Chas Alspack was president.
3. Rented U-Haul to get club stuff to shows
4. Only 2 shows per year.
5. Club stuff stored in Grand Prairie warehouse.
6. Christmas Party each year.

From  Pete Dahlberg

• We did a show down in Palestine in the town square for the Palestine “Train Days”. Because the ground was not level we asked for some ballast, the sponsors brought us some wet building sand. It worked fine for the first several hours but as the sand dried out and we started having all sort of wrecks. The bigger problems was that we had sand in the track joiners for several years after.
• We regularly held meetings at On the Border next to Six Flags. In fact we were having a meeting when the Oakland CA earthquake occurred.
• We had several sessions where the club got together to help build a members layout.
• When we decided to make the mountains we just got several large blocks of Styrofoam from a billboard company. We then had a session where we used chainsaws to carve the mountains. It was a blizzard in July.
• Early on the club did not own anything. Members had to bring the track, powerpacks, trains, buildings, etc. It was quite a task to determine if we were going to have the right things for each show. At the end of each show it was also a task that everyone got their stuff back.
• The objective of the club was “to have fun with trains”.
• Meetings were split between shows, home meetings, meetings in restaurant and work sessions.
• At one point the club was asked to build a layout for the A&M Extension Station in north Dallas. We looked at the space they were going to offer and it was not the best. Also it was going to be our expense for building the layout and we would be responsible for all the labor to do landscaping.

Today

Contact

The Club’s Email Address is:  info@ntgrc.org

Or

For questions, comments, or more information on the North Texas Garden Railroad Club, send us your question or comment:

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Name Email Subject

Email *

Subject

Comment or Message

Submit