Meanwhile, it was in late summer of 1992 when SANTRAK found their first real home. Marshall Long happened to notice that the Terrell Plaza location, previously occupied by SAMRA, was still vacant. Renovation of the facility had started when SAMRA vacated the place, but was never completed. We were granted permission (rent free) to use the location for meetings and storage of our modules, but we could NOT open to the public because of the overall torn-up condition of the place.  We had a small restroom in which the commode worked but the wash basin drain was hopelessly plugged up. We soon determined that electricity was available at the main switch panels and a few outlet receptacles, but all overhead lighting circuits had been disconnected and open wires were free and dangling from sections of conduit attached to the metal rafters overhead. It wasn’t pretty, but the price was right and it WAS A HOME.

David Doege (a member of the New Braunfels train club at that time) is a licensed electrician so he agreed to assist us in pulling back all the loose wiring and also agreed to sign any required papers as the senior electrician. SANTRAK had built up a small bank account by this time, so we agreed to buy about six shop lights, two spools of wire and a few odd fittings so that we could have some lights in the place.  I took a short vacation from my job and installed the necessary wiring. We had enough modules at this time to make an oval layout about 12 ft. Wide by approx. 30 ft. long. We now had a place to run trains and hold meetings but as winter time came around, we soon began to realize there was no heat available. We were a little uncomfortable at times, but winters in San Antonio are short and warm weather soon returns. We were able to stay in this location for less than a year before we had to vacate.

In spite of the sparse surroundings, our club was able to make some interesting changes during our brief stay at Terrell Plaza. The biggest problem in setting up at various shows in the past had been the transportation of those big battleship corners.  However, an article in the Nov./Dec. 1992 issue of N-Scale Magazine showed us a way to solve our dilemma.  This is the article that prompted the construction of our first two 180 degree end-loop modules. Time was short, the  building was damp and cold, and I thought the Celluclay scenery mix would NEVER dry out. After about five days the scenery was still damp and set-up was scheduled for the following evening. Thankfully, Texas type weather came through for us on Thursday evening with a change that brought warmer temperature and a drop in humidity.

We took the modules up to the Seven Oaks Motel on Friday evening to set up for the Jan. 1993 SAMRA Jamboree the next day. This was to be our very first “Compressed NTRAK Layout”; in other words, no center pit area and no big corner modules. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that tracks on our new end modules would not match when two standard modules were placed back-to-back and one of the modules had a backboard on it. With a little shifting of modules and a narrow bridge, we were able to put the layout together and were ready to run trains the following morning. We also started planning the second set of end-loop modules to provide the 4 inch back-to-back clearance that we have on our layouts to this day. However, it would be several months before those units could be completed.