To expand a bit on what Steamer said.
The location is the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. It is housed in the boiler room of the Cabot mill complex. That is part of the mill complex that began with the first building in the US built to be a mill, I think 1805. Over the years to grew to a very big complex of probably a dozen buildings. It is on the site of a dam so for some time it had water power. When it finally closed as a mill it was converted to a senior living center. The developer was required to set aside the boiler building as a museum. We actually hold the show in the senior center hall.
The main museum room has a single boiler, and several engines and mechanical devices. The main engine was not preserved. It has a balcony area with clock and watch displays- Waltham was know as watch city for many years. There is a shop area with overhead shafting and a few machines hooked to it that can be demonstrated. Most of that was built by our club members and a volunteer group that spent one day a week there. They also built a replica of the type of loom that would have been in the first building. One of the most unique machines is a water servo powered sluice gate that regulated the wheel speed.
The New England Model Engineering Society was an idea I had in 1994. I worked with the museum staff to sell the idea, then got board approval for a six month trial. We quickly became one of the museums major activities, and our shows bring in a huge part of their annual visitors. Although I retired and moved to Maine- 150 miles from the museum, the club has continued to meet and hold its shows. I make it to most shows and an occasional meeting.
We do have an industrial diesel power air compressor outside and a pipe manifold along one wall for the steam engines. We do allow short runs of IC engines, as long as they are not very smokey. On the one year mentioned one guy brought in a big- non model- single cylinder engine that made a lot of smoke. Before we stopped him some visitor had called the fire department, and we were greeted by a major turn-out of engines and men- arriving into the show with their breathing tanks on.
Before we held the first show, I think it was 1996, I went in and met with the local fire chief, showed him a book of photos from the UK ME show to explain what we were going to do. He had a man visit the first show with some measuring equipment and after a while declared we were fine to run. It was about 16 years later- probably that chief had long retired and we no longer even mentioned to the fire department we were having a show that we had out visit.
The club website,
http://neme-s.org has lots of photos of our show and many others, as well as club newsletters and other information. Our most famous thing, I think is Rollies Dads method of lathe alignment- Rollie is an original member and still attends, and his dad attended a few meetings, including our very first meeting. The method was first presented at a meeting, and posted by a member on a web page. Another member, Steve Welcome, wrote it up for HOME SHOP MACHINIST magazine.
