Author: Al Lowe

JJ Johnston

Once again our enthusiastic Eastside Get-Together chief honcho, JJ Johnston, welcomed about 50 attendees to the February meeting. He introduced/recognized the officers and committee chairs of the 4^th Division in attendance as well as the MMRs. Don and Beth MacLaren did a great job filling in for our Welcome Ambassador Clay Hanson with making sure everyone had a name tag and ballot for the Model of the Month and door prize drawings.

We had several new attendees with us: Mike Dziubinski modeling in N Scale; Pete Murphy modeling in HO Scale; Jim Linden modeling in HO Scale; Richard Moore modeling in HO Scale; Craig Jackson modeling in High-Rail; Lee and Nancy Marsh modeling in HO Scale. Lee will be presenting our clinic later.

Announcements were by: Rob Jones, 4D Membership Chair, described some new ideas to promote membership such as having a “membership chair” in each clinic and doing clinics at libraries or other venues; Jim Sabol touting the release of the new DVD West Coast Railroad Logging that he helped put together selling for $25 cash or $29.95 check (this is the DVD he talked about several months ago and treated us to some of the old movies being used in the DVD) and reminded everyone of the upcoming annual logging event in Elsie, Oregon; Bob Rorabaugh telling about the swap meet in Chehalis March 29 and 30; David Yadock thanking everyone who attended and/or helped out with the PSC show which had over 12,500 attendees for the 3-day weekend show and that the Science Center staff will be working to get things rolling earlier for next year in the way of announcements and posters and that he would like to see more smaller layouts made available to spread around the Science Center for more variety (all scales are welcome!); Roger Ferris commented that the last of the PFM materials were available in the Mart; Russ Segner mentioned that Joe Fugate, of Model Railroad Hobbyist, would be the speaker at the Convention banquet in June and that the election of two officers for 4D were coming up and, if you wanted to run for either of these two positions, to contact Mike Highsmith or himself.

David Yadock’s Santa Fe F-3s

RMC article on Jim Noonan’s layout

Model of the Month had four “entries”: David Yadock with an A-B set of Santa Fe F-3s found on his shelf and added a decoder, working Mars light, marker lights and a tune-up; Bobj Berger displayed an RMC article on Jim Noonan’s layout stating that the layout was available for sale and can be moved since it was built in sections; Bob Rarabaugh displayed “PUM”(Piles of Unusable Material) or a slash burn pile that he had made; Russ Segner displayed his “scratch built in no scale” cash donation box for the Bellevue library using mahogany, but had to build a bigger one. And the winner was … Bob Rarabaugh with his pile of trash!

“PUM”(Piles of Unusable Material)

Di Voss was asked to report on his evaluation of using “Bull Frog Snot” for traction on one of his engines. He applied it to a ten-wheeler which before application could pull 2 cars up a 2 ½% grade. After the application the ten-wheeler could pull 6 cars up the 2 ½% grade! He applied the “Snot” to only the gear-driven driver. He said it worked just like a rubber tire on the wheels.

After our break, Lee Marsh gave us a wonderful presentation on the construction of his layout, “Head of the

Lee Marsh

Rake – GN Cascade Division” in HO Scale.The layout is basically an L shape 12 feet wide at the base of the L and 32 feet long, built 51 inches from the floor with a 24” minimum radius. Being a civil engineer, the benchwork is very solid but includes some unique access hatches to get to hard to reach locations. Lee and his wife Nancy moved to WashingtonState in the 1980s and began exploring the StevensPass area where they encountered the BN line over the Cascades. All this scenery and complexity of getting the railroad through the mountains solidified the idea that he wanted to build a mountain railroad. He began developing a layout plan in the mid-1990s and knew he wanted a main line run through the mountains. He liked the late steam and early diesel equipment and eventually ended up on the 1951 time frame. Knowing he couldn’t include faithful reproductions of the features along the GN line he decided to freelance using Everett and the GN main line over the Cascades. He started construction in 1996 and figures it’s about 80% complete today.

The layout includes five staging tracks underneath the upper level permitting staging of the primary trains and two three-track stub yards for staging of local trains. The upper level is reached via two helices. One is near the end of Delta Yard in Everett and the other is at the other end of the layout going toward what would be StevensPass if the layout continued that far.

The scenery is hard shell which provides space beneath for the staging. The backdrop Is hand-painted from photographs taken in June north of Skykomish. Since this is mountainous territory there are a number of bridges and trestles all of which are excellently done. Naturally, there has to be a lot of trees of all sizes and shapes and Lee has been fortunate to find a company that can make any kind of tree he needs. When you see pictures of the layout, you really feel like you’re in the Cascades!

One week later, on Saturday March 1, Lee held a private open house of his layout exclusively for those who had attended his Thursday Eastside presentation. Very impressive and stunning scenery. Assisted by Mike Dziubinski, the trains ran very well and it was a great time for everyone to be able to spend some time admiring Lee’s work.

Lee will return to the Eastside monthly meeting on April 17 to present a clinic on the use of Helicon Focus, a software program which creates incredible depth of field photographs. Attendees will be invited to bring their cameras and use them in actual situations. Watch for more information.

JJ Johnston

Notice: Eastside Get Together announced a unique clinic presentation and a follow-up home layout tour. The monthly meeting  coming this Thursday, February 20, 7:30 pm of the Eastside group will feature an informative clinic never before seen in our region by noted local modeler Lee Marsh.

Lee’s clinic will feature his famous Great Northern Cascade Division HO layout covering layout construction from its conception to its nearly completed stage today. He will show unique features such as mock-ups, access, scenery details, rolling stock set-up, wiring and DCC conversion along with photos of his home layout which recently appeared in TRACKSIDE PHOTOS of Model Railroader magazine, July 2013 issue  You’ll witness the layout evolution into a sense of place as his Cascadian glides from Spokane through the mountains to Seattle and the trains into a sense of time in the Spring of 1950. The Great Northern Railroad Historical Society (GNRHS) has published an article on his Cascade Division and Lee has received permission to reprint the article as a handout to be distributed to those attending this meeting.

Lee’s Private Home Layout Tour. A future date has been established for a private tour of Lee’s home layout. You MUST attend the clinic presentation to receive the date, place and time of the event and complete a personal sign-up registration. The information regarding the layout tour will not be published after this announcement. Lee’s layout has not been seen by very many people and has not been on any open house schedule of local conventions. This is one meeting you will not want to miss.

Of course the Thursday meeting will feature our usual official greeting of all members, free coffee, donuts, Model of the Month competition, video rental library, railroad items for sale and fabulous door prizes donated by Inside Gateway’s Steve Depolo in Woodinville.

Meetings at Bellevue Foursquare Church, 2015 Richards Road, Bellevue, 98006.

JJ Johnston

The illustrious Eastside Get-Together chair, JJ Johnston, welcomed 29 attendees to this first gathering of 2014. He had the usual introduction/recognition of his “VIPs” attending (officers and committee chairs of the 4^th Division and MMRs. He then gave an update on the distribution of the Christmas collection to the church. The monies were divided between two ladies in need of help with their rent and other expenses. He read thank you notes from each of them.

Announcements included David Yadock on the Pacific Science Center show this weekend and the continuing need for volunteers to help out with the unloading/loading at the beginning and end of the show plus relief for other volunteers during the show; Russ Segner on the upcoming PNR convention at the Tacoma LaQuinta hotel from June 18 – 21, get registered, select your tours, and work on those contest models; Roger Ferris on an upcoming giant sale of 12 estates, PFM collection and many of Jim Noonan’s cars and engines as well as his layout!

The “Model of the Month” had two entries: Russ Segner displaying several pieces of wood (for identification purposes) from the Snoqualmie museum (also part of his later presentation) and Di Voss displaying a bottle of “Bull Frog Snot” which he explained he was trying on one of his locomotives to get better traction (report next month). Russ ultimately “won” the “contest” (?).

After the usual break, Russ Segner did a presentation showing the reconstruction work being done on one of the passenger cars at the Snoqualmie museum. In this case it was a Barney and Smith Day Coach #210. He got interested in working on the reconstruction just prior to the National Narrow Gauge convention in 2012 after a visit to the museum  He said there are about 8 volunteers working on the car on a regular basis but there’s a lot more restoration work to be done and the museum would be happy to welcome additional volunteers. Russ had a power point presentation with many photos to show indicating what the car looked like before restoration started and the progress since then. Unfortunately, the computer with the presentation and the projector did not want to cooperate with each other very well, so all the photos couldn’t be seen.  Russ promises to redo the presentation at a later date. However, what was shown provided a great look at what can be done in restoring old equipment to usable condition.

Come join us February 20 for our next Get-Together with a special clinic to be presented by Lee Marsh of Issaquah discussing how he designed and built his fabulous GN Cascade Division layout. A photo of his layout recently appeared in “Trackside Photos” in Model Railroader magazine.

JJ Johnston

REMINDER:

There will be an Eastside Get Together, this Thursday, Jan 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the Bellevue Foursquare Church.

We will have a special presentation by Russ Segner. Our 4D Superintendent will reveal the amazing progress from start to finish in the reconstruction of SPS day coach #218. Russ has worked extensively on this project at our local Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie. With over 50 photographs, Russ will take us through the 6½ years of this historical car restoration. Come see local history being preserved in our backyard.

All the usual other stuff will happen, too. See you this Thursday. Happy New Year!