By Jeff Moorman

Next Clinic:

The last Seattle-North clinic of the calendar year is this Thursday, December 3. The general topic will be winter railroading.

Everyone is reminded that construction work at the church continues. You must now enter the property from Aurora Avenue N. The back entrance off Linden Avenue, which many found so convenient, is fenced off.

Old Business:

Before I forget I want to acknowledge that we had one “Show and Tell” entry at October’s clinic. Dennis T brought a N scale diesel. Said locomotive was brass, which made it a bit unusual since we don’t see much brass in N. Dennis acquired this diesel in the auction held during last summer’s NMRA convention in Portland.

Prior Clinic:

The start of November’s clinic was different. Jack Hamilton, the NMRA’s Western Region Director, was on hand to present a “Fellow of the NMRA” award to long time Seattle-North clinic supporter and attendee, Roger Ferris. Roger has been a model railroading advocate for decades at the local, regional, and national levels. It was nice to see his efforts rewarded with this prestigious award. Click here to see the award presentation in more detail.

Next up we had what is hoped to be the start of a new feature of the clinic, a mini-presentation on a railroad that no longer exists. Each clinic will feature a different “fallen flag” with the presentation being done by a volunteer from among the attendees. Here’s your chance to talk about your favorite railroad.

The initial railroad covered was the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ). Did you know it actually started out hauling coal under animal power? There was a reasonable amount of mining in New Jersey and the CNJ was involved in a bunch of it. This provided a nice segue to the third part of the evening.

Lastly we continued the mining topic started the previous month. After some discussion of the types of mining and the types of things that can be mined, we talked about modelling mining operations.

First, why model mining? There is some sort of mining almost everywhere and a historical relationship between railroads and mining, so prototypes and examples are pretty easy to find. Mining often means heavy, slow trains (and sometimes spectacular scenery). There is generally lots of information and rolling stock available. Plus, mining-related structures can be pretty interesting.

Here are some things to consider when modelling mining:

  • Rolling stock and machinery need to match the type of mining being portrayed, and the era being modeled.
  • Not all mine traffic was gondolas/hoppers/ore cars. Mines occasionally receiving incoming shipments of timbers, machinery, fuel, etc. And some mines shipped their final product in boxcars.
  • Some passenger service might be required to get miners to work and back home.
  • Sometimes the rail-cars carrying the mine product needed to be sorted before moving to their final destination, providing additional work for your railroad.
  • Getting empties back to the mine is probably as important as getting the product out.
  • Trees around hard rock mines were usually gone (cut up and used for timbers). Also, vegetation around smelters/concentrators/mills was often dead due to the poisonous chemicals used.
  • Whenever possible the prototype used gravity to move product.
  • Leave space along loading spurs for cars to move to and past the loading spot.

Directions: We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175th and 185th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. From the lot go up the steps to the main entrance. Once inside, the Fireside room where we meet is on your left.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, usually September to May. In June we often do something different, so there is no “regular” meeting. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the program will start at 7:30.

Remember the next regular evening meeting is December 3. The meeting after that will be January 7, 2016. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line. And don’t forget you now can only enter from Aurora Avenue.