Category: Eastside Get-Together (Redmond) Clinic

JJ Johnston

This month’s Eastside Get-Together clinic presentation will be by our very own John Thompson, discussing “Cajon Pass Operations, 1946-1956.”

This PowerPoint show is about operations on Santa Fe’s CajonPass in Southern California during the steam-to-diesel transition years. Its mostly color photos show the Santa Fe and Union Pacific freight trains, passenger trains, motive power, helpers, and stations along the route, plus maps and slides explaining operations.

Come join us this Thursday as we relive the glory years on CajonPass!

We also have all the usual stuff, including door prizes, prize-roasted coffee & assorted hand-selected donuts, railroad items to buy and sell, the Model of the Month and just good times. You do not have to wear a costume to the meeting – we’re all spooky enough! The Model of the Month can include a carved pumpkin, however. See ya there, this Thursday, 7:30 p.m. in the Bellevue Foursquare Church.

Al Lowe

Click to enlarge

The 4^th Division’s very own JJ Johnston was recently honored in the August issue of the national NMRA Magazine, in the Division Business Car section. In case you missed it, here’s a scan of the article.

Remember: when you’re traveling, check the Magazine’s Club Car section for clinics to attend. This month’s Eastside Get-Together will include an NMRA member from Texas who is traveling in this area!

JJ Johnston

Let us all take a moment to remember our legendary modeler, Paul Scoles, MMR, who passed away Friday morning following a difficult surgery. Paul has been a trusted friend and a generous mentor to many of us. As you may know, Paul presented several clinics at our Eastside group and has allowed us to visit his amazing Sn3 home layout on several occasions.

This Thursday, May 15, is our last scheduled meeting until September. Our guest presenter this Thursday will be noted modeler and Inside Gateway famous hobby store owner, Steve Depolo. Known for his extensive modeling talents and his scenery expertise, Steve will share the stunning methods he uses to age and weather models.

Of course we will offer the Model of the Month Showcase, bring stuff to sell or buy at the best known RR Mart around, coffee and donuts organized by CJ Turner, welcome by Ambassador Clay Hanson and the video library may also be available for rentals. We start at 7:30 in the BellevueFoursquareChurch so be there early to make sure you get an apple fritter.

PS: Following last month’s clinic on coal loads presented by our favorite newsperson, Glenn Farley, Lee Marsh (our presenter from the previous month) posted this photo of his coal load he modeled using Glenn’s techniques. Sweet!

See ya Thursday.

Lee Marsh’s coal load

Ed Liesse / Photos by Ed & Lee Marsh

Our “Beloved Host” JJ Johnston welcomed everyone to the Eastside Get-Together and, following the script for our meetings, introduced the members of the 4D Board of Directors and the MMRs in attendance. He then mentioned a new product from Chooch Enterprises, a peel-and-stick flexible cribbing wall similar to the flexible stone walls introduced a few years ago and thanked Mike O’Connell for personally bringing some as door prizes. JJ also mentioned the article by our own David Yadock in the April issue of Railroad Model Craftsman on “Modeling a Load of Corrugated Pipe.” David shared this very model with us a couple of months ago.

Ken Liesse’s cherry trees (Click to enlarge)

Announcements included Ken Liesse telling about Tacoma Trains celebrating 20 years in business this coming weekend with a big sale; Russ Segner commenting on the 4D Ballot being in the mail and be sure to vote and reminding those attendees not yet registered that the PNR Convention is drawing near (June 18 – 21) with several fine prototype tours available as well as clinics, layout tours and other activities; Rob Jones said the SPROG’s are back in stock at Eastside Trains and brought a number of items available for purchase with an additional 10% off the price; Alex Brikoff talked about new projects in development under the Education Committee and needing volunteers to help carry them out; and Di Voss mentioned that a group of 4D members in Alaska are putting together a bid to hold a NMRA Convention up there, possibly 2019.

David Yadock’s RMC article

The Model of the Month had three entries plus several display items. Ken Liesse brought in several cherry trees he built using what he called the “Jack Hamilton Method,” using dried flowers from Michael’s as the base; David Yadock had his RMC article; and Bob Rorabaugh had a diorama inspired by a photograph showing the vanishing rails and other materials reaching toward a vanishing point on the horizon (you really had to see it to understand the concept!).

Bob was the eventual winner of the Model of the Month. The display items were: Russ Segner’s photographs showing the tram that ran from Newcastle down to Lake Washington bringing coal to the docks and one showing the narrow gauge railroad that ran to Renton; and, John Morrison’s large 2-8-2 modified locomotive that he painted since he last showed it several meetings back.

Bob Rorabaugh’s vanishing point diorama

After our usual short break for refreshments and looking over the “goodies” Rob brought, we regathered for a presentation by Lee Marsh on Helicon Focus Lite, a computer program that makes your photography look marvelous! As you all know, trying to take a photo of a stationary train by standing at the front of the train and shooting toward the end, it’s impossible to keep a nice sharp focus over the full length.

Lee Marsh’s Helicon Focus demo (Click to enlarge)

Lee set up a display train on a table to demonstrate how this program solves that problem. You do need a manual digital camera, a tripod and a cable shutter release or timed release of the shutter. You don’t want the camera to move once you have it set for the angle you want on the subject. You then select the f-stop and exposure time you want and then take a series of photos with a different focus point for each shot. Lee took 12 photos of the train on display to demonstrate. You then transfer the photos to your computer, run the program and watch the screen “assemble” the twelve photos into one photo that’s completely in focus! It was fascinating to watch the Helicon Focus program do its thing, and all in a matter of seconds!

Bob Rorabaugh’s diorama after Lee Marsh’s Helicon Scan (click to enlarge)

You can probably get a better explanation of this whole presentation from Model Railroad Photography – April 2014, provided by Lee Marsh. Lee also used Bob Rorabaugh’s diorama as another example. If you enjoy taking photos, this was a clinic that, in effect, kept you on the edge of your seat watching the presentation and anticipating the outcome!

The next Eastside Get-Together will be on May 15. The clinic will be presented by Inside Gateway hobby store owner Steve Depolo and the subject of weathering. Come join us!

JJ Johnston

Following Lee Marsh’s fabulous home layout tour, Lee returns for a special clinic on using Helicon Focus to achieve incredible depth-of-field photographs. Lee will have an actual demonstration with his camera and computer. Everyone is invited to bring their camera and try it out. Camera must be able to manually focus to create focus stacking and be digital for computer downloading. We start at 7:30.

We hope to see you at our next Eastside Get-Together April 17. Don’t forget to file your income tax return before the 15^th!

REMEMBER:  Eastside Get-Together, Thursday, April 17, Bellevue Foursquare Church

Ed Liesse

JJ Johnston, our exuberant leader of the Eastside Get-Together, welcomed about 35 attendees for the March meeting. As usual, he did his introductions of the officers and committee chairs of the 4^th Division and the MMRs in attendance.

Asking for new attendees, he found three: Jerry Madsen who said he wasn’t new but hadn’t been there for awhile being busy as the VP of the Puget Sound Garden Railroad Society; Steve Kyle who is a “high-railer” came to see what we’re all about; Ben Wong who is looking for something to do after retiring! All were welcomed to the group and encouraged to join us again.

Announcements were made by JJ on the upcoming convention and the special building contest; Alex Brikoff, 4D Education Committee Chair, mentioned that the Video Library function was being moved to the Education Committee and looking for volunteers to help with the video library; Alex also hopes to create a database of clinicians and clinics; Rob Jones, 4D Membership Chair, said that membership was going okay so far; Ken Liesse mentioned that the Northwest Railroad Museum in Snoqualmie is looking for new volunteers for the conservation/restoration project they have going (both Ken and Russ Segner are volunteers at the Museum, Ken in Operations and Russ in Restoration); Rob mentioned that he could offer an additional discount on the items he brought from Eastside Trains.

Model of the Month had three entries: Mike Donnelly displayed pulpwood cars using real branches for loads; Rob Jones displayed fire trucks in N and HO using N’gineering Products for lighting; Bob Rorabaugh displayed a logging camp car kit with many details. The ultimate winner of the Model of the Month was Bob Rorabaugh.

After a short break for refreshments and voting on the Model of the Month and looking over the items Rob brought, it was time for our feature presentation.

We were privileged to hear from the 4D’s newest MMR, Glenn Farley. He actually had two different topics for presentation, one on Coal Loads and the other on Realistic Headlights. He had projected photos to show his methods and examples for us to see and, in some cases, handle.

For coal loads, he makes a base from blue foam to fit inside the car or tender. In his case, several years ago he happened on a sheet of thin blue foam which he claims he will never use up! He cuts a piece to fit the car then shapes the sides and the ends to look like the basic shape of a coal load. This shape goes back to before the days of the current flood-type coal loaders being used in the PowderRiver Basin in Wyoming and other locations. He then coats the load shape with an acrylic artist color to cover the blue foam. For coal, he finds a lump of coal (we won’t say where he finds it), puts it in a strong bag or several bags and proceeds to pound it to small pieces. He uses several plastic pipe end caps with holes drilled in the bottom to serve as filters for the coal, decreasing the hole size on each end cap until he has the size of coal he wants. When he has the right size of coal, he coats a small area of his shaped load base with Testor’s Gloss lacquer and sprinkles on the coal. Then he moves up a little on the load and repeats the lacquer and coal application and repeats this until the load is covered. After it has a chance to dry he comes back and repeats the process to fill in any holes.

For realistic headlights, he uses MV lenses and incandescent bulbs rather than LEDs. He finds the center of the lens on the back and drills hole just larger that the bulb size. He then checks the bulb for fit and glues it in place. This procedure works quite well for the diesels. For steam engines he turns down a Lucite rod to fit into the lens, uses a hot soldering iron to form a mushroom end on the rod (sort of a lens shape) and then places the bulb behind the mushroom end. All this goes inside the headlight housing! Luckily, with all the photos and the examples he brought, it was much clearer than trying to put it into words!

We hope to see you at our next Eastside Get-Together April 17. Don’t forget to file your income tax return before the 15^th!

Click images to enlarge

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.