The Albany Model Railway Association commenced following the bequest of the model railway collection of the late Robert Goodman, a local solicitor, to the Town of Albany in 1989.

Behind Robert’s practice in Peels Place in the loft of a garage was a large model railway. After Robert’s retirement he  moved house and constructed a model railway in the ground floor of his house on Mount Clarence. Many of Mr Goodman’s models are on display in a cabinet in the entrance room of the Club.

The Club’s first meetings were held at the Board Room of National Mutual offices in Aberdeen Street. The first temporary HO/OO layout was constructed in April/May 1989 for a display in the old parcels office on the Albany Railway Station to coincide with June 1989 celebrations of the first 100 Years of Rail in the Great Southern.

1989 also saw discussions being held with Westrail to secure a leased clubroom and with a solicitor for the preparation of a Constitution. A Constitution was agreed to and Incorporation followed on 14th June 1990. 
AMRA took up a lease with Westrail in March 1990 for part of the Albany Railway Station referred to as the “Old Bond Store” (circa 1856) at the eastern end of the platform. Some original sign work is still visible on the interior brick wall behind the front layout.

After a major clean up of AMRA’s new premises in the Old Bond Store a track plan was drawn up and agreed by the members and construction commenced of the permanent HO/OO scale layout in April 1990. This layout was in operation by June 1990 for display to the public on our first open day. The opening in June coincided with an Australian Railway Historical Society’s excursion to Albany.

Towards the end of 1990 we started the planning of the layout extension into the rear room making the overall layout an “L” shape. Construction commenced in 1991 and operation began in conjunction with the Stirling Terrace festival in April 1992.

We have been open to the public nearly every Saturday since mid 1990. We also open Wednesdays during school holidays.

Open times are 1-30 to 4-30pm.  For larger groups we can organise special opening hours by prior arrangement with the Secretary.

Admission charges are $3.00 for adults and $2.00 for children.  Under 5's have free admission.  By providing this small charge we hope to encourage families and individuals to come experience our wonderful hobby. Some 1000 people visit our display each year. 

In August 1997 AMRA held a model railway/hobbies exhibition in Albany. A feature of the first and second exhibition, held in August 1998, was the very impressive Arid Australia layout featuring very long trains modelled on the iron ore railways of the North West, Nullarbor and other Australian locations. 
The next Hobby Expo was held in the Albany Agricultural Society's Centennial Oval Hall in August 2001. Feature layouts were supplied by Märklin Model Railway Interest Group and the Western Australian Garden Railway Association from Perth and local enthusiasts. Other hobbies were well represented. 
We plan to continue organizing these hobby expos and holding them at a suitable time every 2 years over a two-day weekend. Our last Expo was held in October 2005 and was our most successful show so far. Our most recent was held in 2007 and it to was very successful. The next Expo is due to be held in 2008 (See the Coming Events page). 

All attendants manning the layout are volunteers, members of AMRA and model train enthusiasts. The ages of members vary from 12 to 68.  Every Wednesday night is a Club night for members to meet and carry out repairs and maintenance to the layout and models. The first Wednesday of each month is a Club business meeting.