Gerry Leone, NMRA Communications Director

At Grand Rails 2012, there will be a drawing for four cab rides from among the participants in the Little River Railroad tour. The cab rides will be in the railroad’s #110, a 4-6-2 Pacific built by Baldwin, during its trip to Quincy and back. The train’s consist will contain a WWII troop car, two converted stock cars, and three cabooses. In addition, the Little River RR’s two other locomotives will be on display for photographs. In fact, you can even climb on them!

More convention news: The Grand Rapids Model Railroad Historical Society is producing an HO-scale model of a true local railroad landmark: the Bridge Street Signal Tower. The prototype, still standing near the convention hotel, was built by the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad to stand guard over the railroad’s crossing of five streets. Only 100 of these craftsman laser-cut kits will be available at a special Grand Rails 2012 Convention price of $65. Members can see photos and get a brief history of the crossing tower at www.gr2012.org/towerkit.htm.

The 4th Division of the Pacific Northwest Region has signed on as a co-sponsor of this year’s Narrow Gauge Convention in Seattle. The 4th Division will be signing up members for the NMRA throughout the event.

Because the NMRA’s Online Archives has been such a rousing success, several prominent photographers and collectors have donated their collections to the NMRA. The first is noted author/photographer Louis A. Marre, who’s donated hundreds of large-format negatives of many subjects. Gregory Sommers has also donated a large collection of freight car slides, and David Lange has donated a large number of scanned images from the collection of the late Jim Morris.  Watch for these exciting additions to the NMRA Online Archives in the near future. Hopefully continued donations to The Diamond Club will cover the cost of scanning and preparing the images.

Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers, at gr2012volunteers@gmail.com for more details.