Gordon Garnhart

There were 24 people gathered at the Summer Hill Retirement Community conference room on September 8th. We had a preliminary discussion of the next contest, which will be to construct a diorama featuring a scratch built dilapidated building. Steve Jaffrey, as winner of last year’s competition, was appointed project superintendant. Detailed contest rules will be distributed at a later date.

The featured speaker for the evening was Noel Holley, speaking on the topic, “Electrification on the Milwaukee Road”. He showed a very complete program of slides accompanied by a running commentary consisting of historical facts, statistics, personal experiences and interesting anecdotes. The Rocky Mountain Division of the Milwaukee Road was electrified for 59 years and was a world pioneer in electric operation. It ran from 1915 until 1974 with trains pulled by engines including GE Motors, Westinghouse Motors, Bipolars and Little Joes. Large brick substations converted 100,000 volts AC into 3,000 volts DC and fed it into the overhead wires. The electrification had a fascinating history. Noel visited the line several times from 1970 to 1973, and wrote a book called The Milwaukee Electrics, which was published in 1987 [with a 3rd edition in 2002]. He is an HO scale modeler and a fan of all of the railroads which ran in the Pacific Northwest. He has been a railroad fan since the age of one and an electric railroad fan since the age of three. He became a fan of overhead wire powered trains as a result of riding the last run of Portland’s Council Crest streetcar. His interest in steam railroad electrification began with pictures of the Great Northern and the Milwaukee Road in books. In high school, he scratch-built O-gauge interurban cars. In college, he switched to HO and began modeling heavy electrics. Noel has lived in Seattle since 1975 and calls it his home.

We will next meet on Wednesday, October 13th when Tom Hawkins will discuss “Designing and Painting Backdrops”.

The meeting was concluded with the usual drawing for several door prizes generously donated by Performance R/C Hobbies on Fairhaven Avenue in Burlington.