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The Cherry Valley RailRoad & Pacific North Western Railway holds operating sessions on the second Saturday of each month. The November session will be on the 13th. Anyone interested in operating with us should contact me at tomenloe@aol.com or Steve Haas at steve.haas@comcast.net.
For those not familiar with these op sessions or the layout, the layout is 28’ x 42’, HO scale, set in 1954, NCE DCC, with operation by timetable & train order. The building opens at 10 AM, the session starts at noon, and we run until 4:30 PM. During the PNR convention, we had 14 guest operators; we normally run with 15 – 18.
The Bremerton Westside Local Clinic was moved up to September 7 so that it would not interfere with the PNR conventions in Lynnwood the second week. October’s clinic will be back in it’s usual place the second Tuesday on the month which will be October 12, 2010. That evening Steve Avery will be presenting the clinic and the subject is still to be determined.
September’s clinic was presented by Peter Maitland on ‘Scale Color’. It was a subject that many of the seasoned painters hadn’t thought about. Color changes with distance. What may be bright up close will grey-out as it slides into the background. Who would think that the slightest dab of purple would gray the tone of yellow. And when Peter said slight he means slight. Green – red, blue – orange are the other colors on the color wheel and their opposites to think about when you are painting and are dealing with distance.
Like I mentioned earlier the next Westside Local Clinic in Bremerton will be on October 12 at the United Way Building of 4th Street, at 7pm. Hope to see you there.
On Wednesday, September 15, 2010, the 4D played host to the NMRA’s Pacific Northwest Region’s annual convention, Cascadian International 2010.
Held at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood, CI2010 surprised everyone by attracting over 200 registrants who, by Friday evening, seemed settled in and enjoying the dozens of clinics, prototype tours, tours of local layouts, operating sessions, open houses, and many other activities.
One of my highlights was Friday’s “Mystery Tour,” arranged by 4D guru and convention prototype tour chair, Roger Ferris. Although we didn’t know what we were in for when we signed up, rumors spread and at least some of them proved to be true. Arriving in downtown Woodinville this morning, we were met by the owner of Eastside Freight Railroad, who loaded us onto his 1970 BN caboose pulled by an SW-1200 in beautiful spanking new EFRR livery. While some of us rode, others chased the train and staged many run-bys to the delight of all photographers present. Watch the video for a small taste of this 4-hour tour.
Meanwhile, back at convention HQ, hundreds of others learned, laughed and made new friends. Click any photo for a larger image.
Railroading experts at HAS begin the daunting task of scan-ning the Kalmbach Library’s massive collection of photographs, drawings, slides, and plans. The first photos should be available online in early 2011.
If you’re a subscriber to NMRA Magazine (formerly Scale Rails) you’ve seen the “Timeframes” series of photographs printed on the magazine’s last page. Those are all shots taken from the Kalmbach Memorial Library (KML) archives. The fact is, our NMRA Library has over 100,000 images, negatives, slides, plans and drawings, and only a handful have ever been seen by NMRA members because it would have entailed making a personal trip to Headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to flip through the files.
Soon that will all change, thanks to the NMRA’s Diamond Club. The Diamond Club is a fundraiser specifically designed to support adding enhanced content to our website at www.nmra.org. The first item on the list of is scanning those 100,000 images and making them available for download.
Each of the 100,000 photos in the Kalmbach Library must be digitized, and important metadata added to each scan to aid in fast, efficient user searches. It’s a time consuming process that will be an invaluable resource to members.
The good news is that scanning of the photographs has begun! In August of 2010, Historical Archives Services (HAS), the firm the NMRA Board of Directors hired to do the scans and design the photo website, began receiving and catalog-ing shipments of photographs from KML. HAS estimates that the first batch of photographs will be available for viewing online sometime in the first quarter of 2011, after a short period of beta testing late this year.
Putting the entire library online will be a costly, time consuming task, since each photo’s listing will also contain highly detailed, searchable metadata, which is be-ing added by the railroad experts at HAS. This detailed metadata will make it easier and faster for users to find exactly the photograph they’re looking for. Cur-rent plans are to make the low-resolution thumbnails of the photographs avail-able to everyone via the website around the clock. Users will be able to download high-resolution files, and NMRA members will receive a substantial discount. Proceeds from the scans will help fund the remainder of the project and future Diamond Club web projects.
As promising as this sounds, it’s important to remember that the Diamond Club still hasn’t reached its projected goal of $75,000. If you haven’t contributed to this worthy cause, please send your donation now to The Diamond Club, NMRA, 4121 Cromwell Road, Chattanooga, TN 376421, or do it online at www.nmra.org/diamondclub.
If you are interested in reserving a table at the 31st Annual Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club Swap Meet being held on November 13 at the Kent Commons, contact Ed Sherry at ersherry@comcast.net.
This is a limited time offer; act soon.
I’m not just a little late with this, but a lot late. Sorry! August 10 we had a great clinic by Pete Rowe on the building of plastic buildings from scratch. Pete does almost if not all his buildings from scratch. He makes it look so easy, but I’m not sure that I could ever make anything as good as Pete does.
Our next clinic will be September 7. Yes this is a week earlier than usual, but with the PNR Convention the second week we wanted to insure that we didn’t miss out on our clinic. Peter Maitland will be presenting the clinic and the last time I talked to Peter he was still deciding on the topic. Another surprise.
The Bremerton Northern Model Railroad Club spent most of the month at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds. We set up Aug 9 and used the time until the fair to run trains and give our old layout some much needed TLC. Our next show will be at Lynden and we hope to see you all there.
A continuing source of confusion in the DCC world is the nature and use of Control Variables. There is a dizzying array of them, 248 at last count, so it’s easy for both novice and experienced DCC users to get a bit overwhelmed. Adding to the confusion, beyond the basic CVs not all decoder manufacturers use them in the same way (!?). That’s the bad news. The good news: You can have a smoothly operating, fully functional DCC railroad with realistic motion and speed matched locomotives, and only use seven CVs!
Note: For now use 28 speed steps, not 128. Trust me…it’s easier this way.
CV 1. Engine address. This one is obvious. Simply enter the locomotive number (up to 127) in this CV and sent it to the decoder, using whatever method your system recommends… that’s it! If you wish to have a four-digit address, go to Direct Programming in your system and bring up ADR. (Some systems will say Loco Num.) Punch in the digits and enter.
CV 2. Start voltage. This sets the decoder so the loco will start creeping as soon as you crack the throttle. Enter a low value here (1 or 2) and place the loco on an operating track. Bring up the address and open the throttle. If the loco doesn’t move by speed step 3 (out of 28) go back to programming mode and increase the value by 3. Usually this will do it. Older locos with open frame motors may require a higher starting voltage. Just fiddle with the numbers until it starts slowly.
CV 3. Acceleration. This CV adds simulated mass to the loco, enabling it to start like it weighs many tons instead of a few ounces. The higher the value entered here the slower the loco will accelerate. My experience with this CV is that a value between 8 and 12 is usually sufficient. More than this and the loco will start way too slowly.
CV 4. Deceleration. Another mass simulator. This CV allows the loco to drift realistically when braking to a stop. For most model railroads, a deceleration rate of about 6 to 8 is adequate. More than this, and your crack express will sail right past the station platform. (Ask me how I know this!) A caveat here: If you are doing a lot of switching, it is best to set the deceleration to 1 or 2. Too much braking delay makes accurate spotting and uncoupling of cars difficult.
CV 5. Maximum Speed. Almost all model locomotives run much too fast. Since we’re not running slot cars, we need to dramatically lower the top speed of our locos. This can get complicated, but, as a rule of thumb, set this value initially to 30 for conventional steam and diesels and 12 for geared steam locos. After you have done this, you can tweak this value up or down for each of your locos until they all run at close to the same speed for a given throttle setting.
CV 6. Medium Speed. Set this CV to about 1¤3 the value of CV 5. This will give you a very nice acceleration curve. Tweak as necessary later.
CV 29. Configuration. This can be a confusing CV if you think about it too much. However, all you need to remember are a few simple things. First, enter a value of 6 into this CV. If the loco runs in reverse when the throttle is set to run it forward, change this value to 7. That’s all, folks! A note here: if you are running permanently coupled F or E “A” units, with or without intervening “B”’s, pick one as the “lead” and enter 6 in CV 29. The other is the “trail” and should be given a value of 7.
That’s it for now. Next time we’ll tackle the dreaded consisting conundrum.
The Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club, the SEATTLE AND NORTH CASCADES RAILROAD, finally has a new home. We have leased part of a building and are in the process of cleaning up the space and preparing for a new layout. The building is centrally located in Burien in the 400 block on SW 153rd St. All the materials have been moved from storage to the new location including those portions of the old layout that are to be considered for use as part of the new layout.
A new layout is in design stages and it is hoped that a first operating session may be held in late spring 2011. Making a layout do everything for everybody is difficult so initial phases are with a design committee to seek a layout that will both fit the space available and satisfy most of the desires of the membership.
Our November 13 Swap meet is on schedule with the usual first class presentation by our dealers, info on the Swap Meet will be in the Digital Grab Iron soon.
The 16th Annual Northwest Logging Modelers Convention will be held at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie the weekend of August 20–21.
Friday: A guided tour of NRM Logging Equipment; a tour of the Issaquah Historical Society Museum (Donkeys); and layout tours of Ken Schmelzer’s Pino Grande Lumber and Russ Segner’s Coal Creek Lumber Co.
Saturday: A diesel excursion behind Fairbanks Morse WRL #1; logging clinics; a presentation by Scott Barrett on Vail-McDonald Rail Tails with Vintage Steam Logging movies; and a Barbecue dinner in North Bend. BYOB.
Full registration is $25.00 (including BBQ), the train excursion is $20.00, and Saturday-only registration is $15.00 (without BBQ). For more info, contact J. Clark McAbee, (253) 906-5826, loggnhstry@aol.com.