The North Atlanta Rail Barons
The North Atlanta Rail Barons is a group of twenty model railroaders who organized as an Operating Group in 2005 to assist each other in building model railroad layouts in each other's homes and to operate those model railroads under constraints similar to the prototype railroads of the era. Members live in the Northwest Atlanta suburbs of Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Woodstock, Canton, and Jasper. Although it started as a group of eight people with no plans to grow beyond that point, the Rail Barons now include more than twice that number in spite of several original members departing for "model railroading missionary work" in other states.
All of our members are active members of the Piedmont Division, Southeastern Region, National Model Railroad Association, making the North Atlanta Rail Barons one of only two 100% NMRA Member Operating Groups in the state of Georgia and one of just 91 100% NMRA clubs in the United States and Canada. The Rail Barons meet weekly at one of the members' homes for fellowship, food, and fun - and most importantly for model railroad construction, operations, or educational clinics. Sometimes we meet for dinner at a local restaurant ahead of our meetings to discuss all sorts of relevant as well as irrelevant topics.
Our Mission
Simply put, The North Atlanta Rail Barons operating group exists to promote the hobby of model railroading. We are involved in helping each of our members to solve problems encountered in building their own layouts as well as community outreach to non-members and even those who have never tried to build a model railroad. With a wide diversity of experience in the group, a lot of teaching and learning new techniques occurs at each of our get-togethers.
Navigating Our Website
To return to this home page from anywhere in our site, click the top hat in our logo above.
For more information on recent activities, please click one of the tabs in the left margin.
For more information on each of our members, please click on their name in the roll-up boxes in the right margin.
Most of the images on the site are clickable for a larger version of the image. Use your browser's back button to return to the page on which the picture appeared.
Contact Information
If you live in the Cobb, Cherokee and Paulding County area and would like information on the North Atlanta Rail Barons, or if you would like to visit one of our operating group sessions, please contact Howard Goodwin below. Please include your telephone number if you wish to have someone call you.
- Electronic mail
- General Information: Howard Goodwin, MMR horn69@bellsouth.net
Member Index
The following current members of the North Atlanta Rail Barons are Charter Members of the group:
The following members have joined the North Atlanta Rail Barons during the last nine years.
Charlie Crawford, MMR was a Charter Member of NARB and former Superintendent of the Piedmont Division. He was the third member of our group to earn the award of Master Model Railroader. He is now participating in another local operating group.
Larry K. Smith, MMR was a charter member of NARB and now lives in Kentucky where he completed the requirements to become the fourth Master Model Railroader from NARB.
Louis Gomes was a long-term member of NARB, an excellent modeler, guru of the CV's and DCC decoders and wiring design. He was the group's first webmaster and is responsible for the design of our logo. Louis recently completed his education and was rewarded with a new job in Houston, TX.
Philo Hutcheson left us when he accepted a position with the University of Alabama Birmingham. He had built an excellent HO-scale railroad depicting the Maine coastline in the 1940's/50's era.