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On Thursday, May 26th the Renton Gathering of 4D model railroaders met at the “new” Renton Highlands library (on Sunset) at 6:30 PM (and concluded at 8:30 PM). The meeting started with greetings by Russ Segner. There were fifteen folks in attendance.
May 2016 Renton Clinic attendees
The “Bring and Brag” offering by Dave Yadock was a Southern Pacific diesel “cow and calf” multiple unit (MU) locomotive.
The May Olympia Clinic occurred May 11th at the Tea Leaf II restaurant, where the food is good. Approximately 30 persons attended to learn about “Working for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul & Pacific Railroad”, presented by Bob Butler.
Following graduation from the University of Washington In 1968 Bob Butler went to work for the Milwaukee Road Engineering Department on the Coast Division headquartered at Tacoma, WA. Bob worked at Tacoma from 1968 to mid 1974 when he was transferred to the La Crosse Division at La Crosse, WI. In mid 1975 he was transferred back to Tacoma to be the Project Engineer of the new Fife Yard. Bob left the Milwaukee Road in February 1978 after the Milwaukee Road went into bankruptcy in November 1977 and cancelled the Fife Yard project.
Are you:
The HO Modular Group of the 4th Division is here to help.
Click here to view or download our latest flyer (PDF format), which contains additional information and pictures.
Operating sessions are continuing on (the late) Tom Enloe’s Pacific Northwestern Railroad and Cherry Valley Railroad (located in Duvall, Washington), although there will not be a session in May due to other commitments.
Pending a sudden change in plans, the PNW will be available for Ops Sessions through late spring/early summer of 2017. In the past, Ops Sessions were not held during the summer months as most folks were busy with outdoor activities and vacations. Since our remaining time to take advantage of the layout is limited we’re entertaining the idea of continuing Ops Sessions through the summer.
Please contact me at Steve.Haas@comcast.net to be placed on the e-mail list for upcoming operating sessions or if you have additional questions.
A layout visit makes for a nice change of pace, so on April 13th the Skagit Valley and Whidbey NMRA Clinic met at the Anacortes home of long-time member Tom Hawkins, for a close-up look at his HO-scale Port Thomas & Southern. Since only a few could view the layout at the same time, to keep others busy, and to discourage excessive consumption of the treats supplied every month by Susan and Phil Gonzales (thanks guys!), clinic members were invited to bring in their track plans — whatever the stage of construction, from dream to done. What a surprise! Of the 23 attendees, there were about as many track plans! Your clinic Grab Iron reporter for one had no idea there were as many layouts abuilding in our area. A lot of interaction and constructive suggestions occurred during the evening.
Tom’s layout, though, was the star attraction. The PT&S features a walk-in track plan in a 10 x 20 foot room. Tom’s plan won 3rd place in Model Railroader’s 2012 Track Plan Contest, and was published in the October 2012 issue of MR, pp 64-66.
Fig 1 – Port Thomas
Tom’s railroad was inspired by the prototype Port Townsend & Southern, envisioned by its builders to connect the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula to Portland, OR. Like many such dreams, it fell far short, only reaching the town of Quilcene 27 miles away.
The next Westside Clinic is Tuesday May 10, 2016.
If you are visiting for the first time our clinics are held at the United Way of Kitsap Building in downtown Bremerton (647 4th Street) at 7 pm. Additional details (including a map and contact info) are on the Clinics Page.
I apologize for not having anything planned, but my mind has been elsewhere.
For those who haven’t heard, we unexpectedly lost a member of our group last week. Paul R Neumann passed away in his sleep. I have been working with his family to figure out what they are going to do with his model trains and train photographs.
Therefore I’m not sure what we will be doing yet. Any Ideas? As always refreshments will be provided.
Please contact me if you have any related question at whopay@tscnet.com or 360-621-5041.
Our 4th Division Spring Meet is this Saturday, May 14th. This is a full day of clinics and a chance to meet other model railroaders from our area. It is also our Annual Meeting where you can discuss with your leaders the major directions the 4th Division will take over the next two years.
Your Division Superintendent gets to hand out a few awards to some very deserving individuals at the lunch break. There is a fine schedule of clinics presented by many of our best model builders. There is a special “Hands On” clinic on building laser cut kits. This is a limited space event and you must pre-register for this extra fare session. Click here to see the full clinic schedule.
While it may be too late to guarantee lunch, you can still register online and either pay online (through PayPal) or at the door. Click here for the main registration page (the “Hands On” registration is on the Clinics page).
Welcome, new 4th Division (PNR) NMRA members (or former members recently renewed)! An e-mail notification is sent out to all Grab Iron subscribers every time a new Grab Iron post is made (or on a regular basis), so this may be one of the first messages you see from our Division. Our 4D web site has clinic info, modular group info, an events calendar, some excellent model train photos, and many pages of other related info as well as all of our Grab Iron posts – click here to navigate to the front page.
As many of you have noticed, there have been problems with Grab Iron post e-mail notifications for at least three weeks. We have been troubleshooting and understanding more of the inner workings of WordPress (and PHP e-mail), e-mail servers, spam blacklists, and SQL tables with plugins. (You can safely ignore the technical words I just wrote – if you’re interested in the details send me e-mail at the address at the end of this message).
We have switched to using the Constant Contact e-mail service that the PNR (Pacific Northwest Region of the NMRA) is using to send out regular (at least monthly) newsletters (typically written by Jack Hamilton). For now Grab Iron post notifications will be sent out by me on a manual basis versus an automatic “post by post” basis (“automatic” notification will be put in place in the future).
Many of us visited layouts open in Olympia on April 30th. So far, several groupings of layouts throughout the region are open on weekends during the year, but there is no such opportunity on the Eastside (East of Lake Washington). These open houses are usually Saturdays from 1 to 5.
I am proposing a layout tour in the Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah, Renton, Maple Valley, Kent, Auburn, and other close by areas for a weekend in mid July.
If you have a layout you would be willing to open to members sometime this summer and are located in one of these areas, please contact me at 452-228-7327 or by email at russseg@gmail.com.
This is a reminder that the 13th annual Olympia Model Railroad Layout Tour will be held on Saturday, April 30th. The following layouts will be on the tour this year: