Model Electronic Railway Group

MERG exists to bring together people interested in the application of electronics and/or computers to all aspects of railway modelling. The Group presents a forum where members suggest and discuss new ideas and improvements on the old.

The Group maintains a library of over 240 Technical Bulletins (available only to members) covering numerous applications of electronics to the hobby such as; signalling, train detection, command control (both Zero1 and DCC), sound as well as computer interfacing and control. New and updated bulletins are issued to all Members and back issues are available at a nominal cost or by downloading from our members only pages on this website. (180 of the bulletins are currently available for downloading).

Membership is open to all modellers over 18 and modellers of all gauges, electronics are applicable to all. Current membership of almost 1000 ranges from professional electronic engineers to amateur beginners, from overseas as well as throughout the UK.

A growing list of kits, including Train-on-Track indicators, Gas Lamp Twinklers a Computer Control system and DCC are available to members as are discounted books and, on occasion, ‘bargain’ components of model railway relevance. Discounts on commercial items are available from some Traders.

A list of members is supplied to new members and updated regularly.

The Journal is issued quarterly and includes members’ questions and answers, their achievements and details of new products of interest and details of forthcoming meetings. Back issues of the Journal are archived on the website. Many of the members also keep in touch by email through the Groups mailing list.

Meetings are held regularly in London and occasionally at other venues. Usually at these a technical talk is given, from this and the ongoing discussion a Technical Bulletin often results. In this way members who are unable to attend are still able to reap the benefit.

We try to offer guidance to members with general queries but do not as a group undertake detail design or production for specific applications.

Membership is currently £13.00 annually for members within the EU, there is also a joining fee of £4.00. The membership year runs from April 1st - March 31st. and a £1 MERG voucher is issued to new members for each expired month at the time of joining. New members also receive a copy of a recent Journal and any accompanying Technical Bulletins. Members living outside the EU are asked to pay an additional £3.00 annually towards the cost of Air Mail postage. Payment may be made by UK cheque payable to MERG, US$ cheque payable to Brian Martin, or by Credit card using Paypal at http://www.paypal.co.uk/, make payment to paypal@merg.co.uk. (EU members can send Euro notes by mail at their own risk, the subscription in this case is Euro 30 including joining fee). When using Paypal we need a small increase to cover the paypal charges. The new members rates are shown in the following table. Also when using Paypal you still need to mail the form to the membership secretary as we need your signature to comply with legislation.

	Rate for payment by cheque	Rate for payment by Paypal
Resident in Europe including UK	£17.00	£18.00
Resident in USA	£20.00 or US$40.00	US$43.00
Resident elsewhere	£20.00 or US$40.00	local equivalent of £21.00

If interested check out the group Charter and Rules.

Join MERG today, fill in, print out and post the on screen application form or if you prefer download the .pdf version, print out and fill in by pen and ink.