The HO-scale Crescent City Model Railroad Club, or CCMRC, was founded in New Orleans in 1956 by three high-school students. They named their club railroad the Crescent Lines and took turns operating on each other’s layout. Two of the members left after high school; but the third, Louis Schutz, remained active in the club for 30 years and attended the club’s 50th anniversary get-together in 2006!

Membership gradually increased and in 1959 the club began work on its first layout by enlarging the existing railroad in the Schultz family garage. It was at this same time that the club’s best-known member, Andy Sperandeo, joined. Andy became well-known locally because of his part-time job at a local hobby shop. He worked there from 1964 until 1978; but many more model railroaders may know about him because of his job as an editor at Model Railroader magazine.  

In 1977 Andy was teaching English at the University of Texas in Austin when he answered an ad in Model Railroader for an associate editor. He was not hired for that position, but the magazine kept his application and contacted him a year later to see if he was still interested in a job. He began working there in January 1979 and retired in 2011, but continued on as a Contributing Editor until he passed away in 2015.

Rick Boutall joined the club in 1961, and when the Schultz family put their home up for sale later that year, the layout was relocated to the Boutall family attic. Three of the Crescent Lines FOUNDERS’ FLEET box cars produced by Home Shops in 2023 were named for Andy, Lou and Rick; while the fourth was named for a later member, Clyde F. “Bill” Williams, who joined around 1971.

The CCMRC was incorporated in 1969 and soon afterwards, the layout in the Boutalls’ attic was dismantled. Construction began in another member’s garage, but this work ended a year later when that member was transferred out of New Orleans, so that layout was scrapped and the club relocated to the existing layout in Lou Schultz’s attic.

In January 1973 club member Joe King learned that the clubhouse and land of a suburban civic association was for sale. Lou came up with a creative way to finance the purchase of the property with a conventional loan and by selling bonds to club members. The club’s offer of $16,000 was accepted and the Act of Sale took place on 11 May 1973. Cleaning up the land and fixing up the building quickly began, followed by the start of layout construction and the installation of air conditioning. The last note was paid off in 1991.

Andy‘s involvement with the CCMRC ended when he went to work for Model Railroader in 1979, but he authored a story about the club for its 25th anniversary which appeared in the April 1981 issue of MR. The club held a 50th anniversary get-together in 2006 and since then, all of the people featured on those FOUNDERS’ FLEET box cars have passed away, all in their early 70’s; but the club is still in existence and will soon celebrate its 70th anniversary.

Website: http://www.ccmrc.com/

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