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January’s “Second Saturday” layout tour is the Olympia Model Railroad Society

Written by Burr Stewart
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Join us at 10am PST on Saturday, January 14 for a video presentation on the Olympia Model Railroad Society (OMRS) HO scale model railroad layout, presented by its club president Scott Nelson. This HO layout features great scenery, working signals, JMRI operations and many other features you may be interested in. As usual, the meeting will open at 9:30 for chit-chat (and possibly some preview videos) and at 10:00 Scott will start his presentation, followed by Q&A. The zoom info is as follows:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87210657142?pwd=ZHhIWnZGMUU0YnAwNVUvMENheEZSUT09

Meeting ID: 872 1065 7142
Passcode: 805577

Layout Tour, News

PNR 2023 Convention

Written by Kurt Laidlaw
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By Kurt Laidlaw

It’s official. The 2023 Pacific Northwest Region Convention—”The Prairie Line Experience”–will take place in Tacoma, WA on May 10-14, 2023. The host committee is working to put together an exciting set of activities for the convention, including multiple tracks of clinics, layout tours spanning the region, contests, AP evaluations, train spotting opportunities, tours and non-rail events.

2023 is the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad at Commencement Bay on the Prairie Line. It is also the 150th Anniversary of the City of Tacoma. Add to those significant dates the 50th Anniversary of the NTRAK modular model railroad standard, and you have exciting possibilities for celebration. The City of Tacoma and the Tacoma Historical Society have events planned throughout the year and we hope to leverage those activities to enhance our convention. Work continues on the Prairie Line Trail, which crosses the University of Washington Tacoma campus before continuing past the Tacoma Art Museum toward the original Northern Pacific Half Moon Yard.

Northern Pacific Railroad HQ: Tacoma Historical Society photo
Prairie Line Crossing Pacific Avenue. UWT photo

The convention hotel is the Comfort Inn and Suites next to the Tacoma Dome and one block away from the AMTRAK, Sounder and Tacoma free light rail stations. This location provides quick access to downtown Tacoma with its many restaurants and museums, Seattle and points beyond. We will be opening hotel registrations as soon as possible. The hotel has given us a great deal on room rates for the convention. Standard rooms are offered as follows: two doubles at $119, two queens at $129 and single kings at $129. The hotel provides free breakfast and free parking. See their website for more information on amenities: Hotel in Tacoma, WA | Comfort Inn® Official Site | Comfort Inn & Suites Downtown Tacoma.

We are still finalizing the registration costs and will have registration open on the website soon. The convention website is located here: PNR Convention 2023 – Prairie Line Experience. We will populate the website as information comes available so check back often. The Host committee is dedicated to making this an affordable convention. We are working hard to keep costs down so everybody can afford to join us next year. Mark your calendars and reserve the dates now. We look forward to seeing you in Tacoma next year.

Kurt
PNR 2023 Convention Host Committee Chairman

Convention or Meet, Layout Tour, News

May’s upcoming 4dPNR Zoom Layout Tour (10am PT May 14, 2022)

Written by Burr Stewart
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For May’s virtual layout tour Zoom, Keith Jordan will take us on a tour of his HO scale shelf layout, the “Patch,” which incorporates the industrial switching of downtown Los Angeles by the Santa Fe. The layout has been featured in Model Railroad Planning and Great Model Railroads.

As usual, we’ll open the meeting at 9:30am and start the program at 10am. Here is the Zoom info for joining the meeting:

Topic: May’s 4dPNR Layout Tour Zoom Meeting
Time: May 14, 2022 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85989615159?pwd=UVpVQlV5cEdmWDh1alJ0RlVLL3EvQT09

Meeting ID: 859 8961 5159
Passcode: 593403
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Layout Tour, News

April’s upcoming 4dPNR Zoom Layout Tour (April 9, 10am)

Written by Burr Stewart
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As usual, we are hosting a layout tour event on Zoom on the second Saturday of the month. For April, join us at 10am PST on Saturday April 9 for a briefing by Larry Sloan on the design and construction of his new HO scale BN layout. After constructing an addition to his house partly for the layout, he has been making steady progress on design, trackwork, scenery and rolling stock in preparation for future operations on this double-deck layout with a helix. There will be lots to discuss. Here is the zoom info for joining the meeting:

Topic: 4dPNR April Layout Tour
Time: Apr 9, 2022 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88165214803?pwd=ZTNBbXhHMEtSNVZhUG4wd2taelVDUT09

Meeting ID: 881 6521 4803
Passcode: 398659
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Layout Tour

4dPNR March Layout Tour Zoom

Written by Burr Stewart
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Join us at 10am PST on Saturday March 12 for a great Zoom presentation. Lee Marsh will give us an explanation how he designed an operating scheme for his highly detailed transition era HO scale Great Northern layout set in the Washington Cascades in the early 1950’s. How he made the transition from a “lone wolf” modeler to a “party animal” modeler.

Here is the Zoom info to join the meeting:

Topic: 4dPNR March Layout Tours
Time: Mar 12, 2022 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81811654479?pwd=eStrK2pKQzdMbHVFMUp5MUt5OVBJUT09

Meeting ID: 818 1165 4479
Passcode: 260171
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Layout Tour, News, Operations

Layout tours on Saturday Jan 8 @10am- Details and Zoom Info

Written by Burr Stewart
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Here is more information and the Zoom info for the 4DPNR Layout Tours scheduled for 10:00am and 10:45am on Saturday, January 8, 2022. Please invite your friends, this will be worth watching!

Michael Dziubinski ‘s Layout (on at 10:00am) is the Northwestern Pacific (Southern Pacific). This N scale shelf and island style with 65 feet of mainline in a 12×15 room and 30 feet of staging/reversing in an adjacent room based on the Northwestern Pacific in August of 1953. It is fully operational, and the scenery is at the 60% mark. The NWP was a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific and ran from Tiburon California in the south, to Eureka California in the north. The layout models the southern division and begins at the town of Tiburon on San Francisco Bay. The NWP interchanged with the ATSF via rail car barge in Tiburon and it is where their main shops were located. The layout continues railroad east, compass north, through various towns and changes in topography such as tidal areas, farmland, vineyards, and redwood forests. The main layout ends in the redwood forests near the town of Hopland. From there it exits to staging and a reversing loop in another room.

Don Borden (on at 10:45am) is a Santa Fe HO modeler of Cajon Pass who will introduce his model railroad and the goals he set for operations and performance. He will give a slide presentation of each geographic/ train order area he is modeling, a summary of the operational scheme his club is using and the electronics to make it work, and finally 2 short videos of trains operating on the layout.

Here is the Zoom info to join the meeting. As usual, we’ll open the meeting at 9:30am and start the formal presentations at 10. Please make sure your first and last name are shown on your Zoom screen name, so we can let you in from the “waiting room”.

Topic: 4DPNR January Layout Tour Zoom Meeting
Time: Jan 8, 2022 09:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88934715496?pwd=UVF5TW1CY2kvNHpQNzNKZFVmbVl1dz09

Meeting ID: 889 3471 5496
Passcode: 836693
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Meeting ID: 889 3471 5496

Layout Tour, News

4dPNR Layout Tours reZoom next Saturday, January 8, at 10am!

Written by Burr Stewart
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You are in for a treat next Saturday, January 8, at 10am, on Zoom! Our regular “Second Saturday Layout Tour Zoom meetings” will resume, with Michael Dziubinski’s spectacularly sceniked N scale layout, followed by Don Borden’s HO model of Cajon Pass on the Santa Fe, both of these layouts modeling the transition era of the early 1950’s. As usual, the meeting will open at 9:30am with the layout tours themselves beginning at 10:00 and 10:45, respectively. Mark your calendars (both for next Saturday and every second Saturday all year!) and join in if you can. If you miss it, we plan to post a recording of the presentations a few days later on the 4dPNR YouTube channel, which is www.youtube.com/c/4dPNRMovies.

The Zoom info for the meeting is:
Topic: 4DPNR January Layout Tour Zoom Meeting
Time: Jan 8, 2022 09:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88934715496?pwd=UVF5TW1CY2kvNHpQNzNKZFVmbVl1dz09

Meeting ID: 889 3471 5496
Passcode: 836693

Layout Tour, News

Virtual Layout Tours resume Saturday, 9/11

Written by Burr Stewart
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Dave Yaddock MMR and Gary Jordan MMR kick off this fall’s modeling season for the fourth division with tours of their layouts on Zoom, on Saturday September 11 at 10:00am. As usual, the meeting will open about 9:30 for casual conversation, and then their layout tours will begin at 10am and approximately 10:45am. The Zoom info for attending the meeting will be posted in the Grab-Iron a few days before the meeting.

Dave’s HO layout has been featured in a series of Grab-Iron posts in recent months, and is called the “Dry Gulch and Western”. Gary’s layout is in O scale, and features interchanges between standard gauge, 3-foot gauge and 30 inch gauge trains, and he models the Gilpin Tram in the Colorado Rockies. Gary’s presentation will focus on how he had configured his layout for virtual operations during Covid times.

Layout Tour, Narrow Gauge, News

4DPNR Layout Tours this Saturday!

Written by Burr Stewart
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May’s 4DPNR Layout tours will take place on May 8, at 10:00 am PST, and will feature an HO NP home layout presented by Robert Richard, and the HO club layout of the PSMRE in downtown Tacoma presented by Steve Carter.

Bob Richard, a long-time model railroader and NP railfan, has focused his HO layout on the town of Easton, WA in the 1940’s, when heavy articulated steam and the new FT diesels ruled the cascade mountains. He is copying the prototype Northern Pacific track, buildings and operations as closely as possible, and his layout tour will show us a combination of prototype photos, layout photos, and a live video demo of trains in action. Expansion plans are also on his mind, and he’s looking for input from the rest of us.

The PSMRE layout tour will give us a chance to get behind the scenes of this large layout in a working museum in downtown Tacoma, how it has transformed over the years, and how the group organizes themselves and their operations. The Puget Sound Model Railroad Engineers (PSMRE) layout is at the Washington State History Museum.  Built as a museum exhibit that also provides a challenging Operations environment, as it represents the Tacoma area in the 1950’s. Largely focused on the Northern Pacific’s operations, they operate trains from the Great Northern, Milwaukee Road and Union Pacific.

The zoom info for this meeting is shown below. As usual, we will open the meeting about 9:30am for technical checks and informal discussion, and start the layout tours at 10:00am. Please use your full name in your Zoom screen name, and add your division if you are outside the 4DPNR group, so we will know you are safe to let in from the waiting room. (As usual, this meeting will be recorded and posted on our 4DPNR YouTube channel for later viewing.)

Topic: 4DPNR Layout Tours for May 2021
Time: May 8, 2021 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88440554588?pwd=Z0Z1a21Qc0pBcHpJUG9tNVg0TVFZUT09

Meeting ID: 884 4055 4588
Passcode: 100460
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+13462487799,,88440554588# US (Houston)

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+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
Meeting ID: 884 4055 4588

Grab-Iron, Layout Tour, News

Extra Layout Tours This Saturday, Dec 5

Written by Burr Stewart
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By Burr Steward

We added an extra Zoom session on December 5 for you to see the two layout tours that were interrupted during the November 14 session. As usual, the meeting will start at 10:00am. The first will be Dave Woodrell with his Sn3 version of the Rio Grande Southern, and then Greg Wright will show us how he built an earthen “table” in his back yard over the summer to develop an outdoor layout. Don’t miss it!

We have improved the Zoom security procedures for all upcoming 4DPNR meetings, so as part of that, the Zoom info for the meeting will be shared with you in an announcement like this about 48 hours before the meeting is scheduled to begin.

Burr

Layout Tour, News