By Syd Schofield, photo by Anton Faulk

East Side Get Together, September 20, 2018

After the summer break, the East Side Get Together Clinic got together at the Redmond Community Center.  Alex Brikoff called the group of interested railroad enthusiasts to a low murmur around 7:15 Thursday evening.  VIPs in attendance were introduced and upcoming events of interest were announced.  See the Grab Iron for those details.
 
The evening’s presentations were on summer railroad-related activities.  Robin Peel presented a summary of his trip to the 2018 Sn3 Symposium in Minneapolis this past summer. Robin then announced that the 2019 Sn3 Symposium will be held in Bellevue, WA next April 4-6, 2019. He also announced that the 2022 National Narrow Gauge Convention will be held in the Puget Sound area, location and details are still TBD. Two European railroads, in Norway and Spain, were presented with slide shows and narrations as well as a collection of pictures and videos of western US.  Photos from a trip through the Panama Canal were presented, showing the unique locomotives used to pull various vessels through the locks at the canal. A recap of the NMRA National Convention in Kansas City, MO was given by Alex.
 
Model of the Month was won by Ted Becker with his two-story frame house, nicely built and weathered.  Anton Faulk showed a picture he took of a railroad tunnel-bridge-tunnel across a shear canyon walled abyss (complete with train) in Spain.  Equally spectacular was his vantage point for the photo on a suspended walkway “trail” on the cliff wall.

Read More

By Alex Brikoff

Welcome back everyone!

The September 2018 Eastside Get Together Clinic will meet on September 20, 2018.
As always, the Clinic is at the:
Redmond Community Center at Marymoor Village
6505 176TH AVE NE, Rm. 202
REDMOND WA 98052-4930

Doors open at 7:00 PM and meeting starts promptly at 7:15 PM

We will begin by mentioning any noteworthy, upcoming model railroad and railfan events in the area for the fall months ahead. We will also have a Model of the Month contest and Rail Photo of the Month contest. So, please bring your best models and photos for the contests! Winners will have first choice of many fine items from our Door Prize table.

This month’s clinic will be “What I did on my Summer Vacation, Railroad-wise” and moderated by Alex Brikoff. This will be a round robin where everyone in the room will have a few minutes to tell the rest of the group what they did over the summer months in terms of model building, railfanning or anything else that has to do with railroading. I encourage everyone to bring photos on a flash drive to go along with your talk since we will have a projector there. Participation is optional but encouraged! I will talk first about our trip last month to the NMRA National Convention in Kansas City, MO.

We will have refreshments and snacks available as always. We’ll also have a great selection of Door Prizes to give away at the end of the clinic.

See you there!

by Alex Brikoff

The June 2018 Eastside Get Together Clinic will meet on June 21, 2018. This will be our last clinic before summer break! We will start up again in September.

As always, the Clinic is at the: Redmond Community Center at Marymoor Village, 6505 176^th Ave NE, Rm. 202, Redmond, WA 98052-4930

Doors open at 7:00 PM and meeting starts promptly at 7:15 PM

We will begin by mentioning any noteworthy, upcoming model railroad and railfan events in the area for the summer months ahead. We will also have our Model of the Month contest and Rail Photo of the Month contest. So, please bring your best models and photos for the contests! Winners will have first choice of many fine items from our Door Prize table.

This month’s clinic will be “Railways in Brisbane” and presented by John Morrison. In his clinic, he will be discussing Australia’s three primary gauge railway problem, the history of this, and what’s being done to alleviate it. He will also describe the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane commuter rail systems, including some of their history and how dual gauge is handled in Melbourne and Brisbane’s main terminals. This promises to be a very interesting clinic.

We will have refreshments and snacks available as always. We’ll also have a great selection of Door Prizes to give away at the end of the clinic.

Have a great summer and see you here again in September!

by Alex Brikoff

The May 2018 Eastside Get Together Clinic will meet on May 17, 2018.
Don’t forget that the Clinic is at the:
Redmond Community Center at Marymoor Village
6505 176TH AVE NE, Rm. 202
Redmond WA 98052-4930

Doors open at 7:00 PM and meeting starts promptly at 7:15 PM

We will begin by mentioning any noteworthy, upcoming model railroad and railfan events in the area. We will also have our Model of the Month contest and Rail Photo of the Month contest. So, please bring your best models and photos for the contests! Winners will have first choice of many fine items from our Door Prize table.

This month’s clinic will be “Modeling Prototype Scenes” and presented by Max Maginness. In his clinic, Max will show how he models scenes on his layout based on a prototype gauge in New Zealand. It works out to be a metric gauge where just about everything must be scratch built as there is very little if any commercially available products in this scale. Max is an MMR and an outstanding model builder. This promises to be a very interesting clinic.

We will have refreshments and snacks available as always. We’ll also have a great selection of Door Prizes to give away at the end of the clinic.

See you there!

by Alex Brikoff

The February 2018 Eastside Get Together Clinic will meet on February 15, 2018.
Don’t forget our NEW LOCATION at:
Lake Washington Institute of Technology, Redmond Campus
6505 176TH AVE NE, Rm. 202
REDMOND WA 98052-4930

Doors Open at 7:00 PM and Meeting starts promptly at 7:15 PM

We will begin by mentioning any noteworthy, upcoming model railroad and railfan events in the area. We will also have our Model of the Month contest and Rail Photo of the Month contest. So, please bring your best models and photos for the contests!

Our clinic this month will be “Milwaukee Operations Near Bellingham and Whatcom County” by Jonathan Fischer. This clinic will be a historical slide show that will take us on a trip back to the 1970’s to tour Milwaukee Road operations in and around Bellingham, WA and Whatcom County. Jonathan is involved with the Milwaukee Historical Society and has shown this and other Milwaukee themed presentations at their meetings.

We will have refreshments and snacks available. We’ll also have a great selection of Door Prizes to give away at the end of the clinic. See you there!!

by Syd Schofield

December 2017 Eastside Get Together Clinic Report

 
 

 

The gathering was brought to order at about 7:20 on the first day of winter by Alex Brikoff. The program for the evening was the annual Dirty Santa Gift Exchange, after the usual Show-and-Tell presentations and recognition of notable attendees.

Here is a summary of the December 2017 Eastside Get Together Clinic held on Thursday, 12/21.
 
Bob Rorabaugh, being acquainted with the building trades, presented a mini-clinic after the break and explained his rebuilding of a sizable engine house/factory building. The goal was to rebuild the model to eliminate some sub-standard construction practices of the original. He was subsequently awarded model-of-the-month honors for first pick of the blind gift assortment.

 
In the long-standing tradition of the Dirty Santa Christmas Gift Exchange, the order of participation was by the usual pick of the door prize jar ballots, after the model-of-the-month winner. To create some additional interest and drama, the concealed wrapped gifts, identified only by appropriate model scale, are not necessarily kept by the original selectee. Upon choosing the package of unknown contents, the package is then unwrapped and shown to the group. This will allow assessment for further trades (up to twice) for subsequent ballot drawings. This year’s Gift Exchange was unusually without contention as all the gifts went unchallenged.
 

PLEASE NOTE: Starting with the January 2018 Eastside Clinic, the location will change to the Lake Washington Institute of Technology, Redmond Campus at 6505 176th Ave. NE, Redmond, Washington.
The day and start time will remain the same. Stay tuned for further details as we get into January.

A Happy New Year to all.