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The club was formed in 1932 by a small group of dedicated modelers answering an advertisement in the January 1932 issue of Model Maker magazine. The Modelers met in the home of George Nixon in March to form the club, taking a bold step they leased a space at 1613 N. Chester Street. They had their first operating layout by 1935, at this time it was O scale and outside third rail. The first open house was in December 1938, and started what was to become an annual holiday tradition. The club was incorporated in 1937 as non-profit corporation in the state of Maryland, and remains that today.

In March of 1944 the club merged with an HO club and decided to move to new headquarters to accommodate two layouts. The BSME moved to its new headquarters at 3305 Greenmount Avenue in May of 1944. Our stay here was a short 3 years, but had operating layouts in December 1944 for the holiday season. The current Governor of Maryland (O'Connor) presided over a "Golden Spike" ceremony celebrating the completion of the layouts and the opening of our open house season.

The club was forced to move when we lost our lease. They found a new home in the basement of a Baltimore Post Office at 1217 W. North Ave. While in the Post Office the club was unable to put on its annual Christmas shows due to fire marshal restrictions. The space was too small for the number of visitors who usually attended the shows. Although two layouts were built, only those modelers who attended our annual anniversary celebrations had a chance to see them. As the annual shows had become a Baltimore tradition and it was the main source of income for the club it was decided a new location should be sought, and in October of 1952 we left North Avenue for our next home.

The current space at 225 W. Saratoga was leased in November 1952. Again two layouts were built, even though the space was large (30x70 feet) there was talk even then that the space wasn't adequate for an O scale layout. The layouts have changed over the years, the most notably in the 1980s the O scale layout was totally rebuilt, going from outside third rail to standard two rail.