The Clovis Area Train Society began it’s operations in 1995 as the Clovis Depot Historical and Modeling Society. We started out with a set of dreams. One was to build a modular layout and the 2nd was to move 9005, the 0-6-0 that resides in the Hillcrest Park.
The first part of our dreams was completed by Christmas 1995 with our first run in the North Plains Mall in Clovis, NM. We had a total of 6 members modeling at that time but by the end of the run we had gained 2 members and were off and running. We had 4 corners and 40 linear feet of modules for our first show. By the time we had our 2nd show, we had grown to 10 members and doubled our linear footage. Our N-scale side of the club was started in 2005 with a gift from members of the LMRA club. The gift was made up of 4 standard corners and 24 linear feet of modules. The modeling part of the club had continued to grow over the years. We now have around 20 members that are working with HO and N-scales and our HO side now has 6 standard corners, 2 of which make an inside corner, and 180 linear feet of modules.
The 2nd part of our dream was moving forward. It started with talking to the City which had been given the go a head with planning the move of 9005. Now moving ahead a few years we had a plan in place for 9005. We had to raise the money and acquire the track and ties for the new home of 9005. At this point was our first stumbling block in this dream. We thought we had the funds to do the track work, but we didn’t, and this project began to come unraveled. However, we were able to make our way through these trials and did finely get our track and ties. We started the work in 1999 of getting ready for the move of the locomotive and began raising the money for the move.
Lets now jump ahead about 6 years to 2006. The club made the decision to change our name to the Clovis Area Train Society. We are also still raising funds need to move 9005.
Jumping ahead again to 2010 and 2011, our molding group had done very well. We still only have 20 members modeling, but we have a very active show schedule which included running our N-scale for the last 5 years at Old Fort Days. We are in our 5th year at the Curry County Fair and our 15th year at the Roosevelt County Fair with our HO. We are also in our 5th year of holding a play day during each fall. To add to our shows, we also try to have a holiday show each year. At the time of the 2010 Curry County Fair, our locomotive, 9005 was still sitting in the park as we still didn’t have the money to move her. This was all about to change as we now have partners in the move and they had just won a grant with the funds needed to move 9005 to it’s new home.
