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Having Fun At The National Convention

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Bill Messecar MMR

Having attended the National Model Railroad convention in Salt Lake City July 7-13 I thought I’d share some of the fun stuff you can do at this once a year event. My friend and I arrived by car Sunday afternoon July 7 in time to register and attended an excellent clinic by Bruce DeYoung about “Blending Backgrounds and Foregrounds”. His key message in placing back drops behind the foreground scene is to “Blend It’, Bend It or Hide It”.

There were five clinic tracks with up to eight a day per track so 40 clinics each day. The challenge was choosing a clinic among so many good choices including history, scenery, and many others. Another of my favorites was Tools, Tools, Tools by Doug Geiger MMR. On Wednesday I joined the Layout Design folks to tour 25 layouts throughout the great SLC area. I choose to travel north to Ogden to visit Rob Spangler’s excellent Western Pacific double deck layout set in the 70s. Rob hosts regular operating sessions using car cards and way bills with Digitrax DCC. I’m attaching a photo from that visit.

Rob Spangler’s Western Pacific layout

Another beautiful layout I visited was set in the 1880s built by Steve Blodgett called the Bear River Railroad. You can see Steve in my attached photo. This layout is only run by Steve and runs beautifully with long passenger and freight equipment built by Steve.

Steve Blodgett and Bear River Railroad

After attending more clinics Thursday I traveled to Alpine, UT about 30 miles south of SLC to operate on Ted York’s famous Santa Fe Cajon Pass layout. Ted hosted almost 20 operators in various jobs that kept us all busy the entire night using real Santa Fe switch lists and train orders. I’ve attached a photo of the San Bernardino yard where I operated a switch job.

Ted York’s Sante Fe Cajon Pass layout

Friday morning was the National Train Show, always a highlight that attendees get in free. This is a wonderful opportunity to see the latest products offered by hobby manufacturers, people selling their model RR stock and many excellent modular layouts. The NMRA convention will be in St. Louis next summer so plan to attend.

Bill

Layout Tour, Model Train Show

North End Clinic’s Annual Home Layout Tour – June 6th

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Lisa Murray

This Thursday, June 6, will be the NMRA 4th division’s north end clinic’s annual home layout tour.

We are pleased to announce that there will be 3 amazing layouts on our tour this year. While it *may* involve a bit of extra driving on your part, it will be worth it.

The tour starts at 7:00pm at the Swamp Creek and Western layout which is located at the Edmonds Amtrak station. They have been gracious to be open and operate trains for us. If you haven’t seen this HO scale layout, you will be impressed at the level of detail of many of the scratch built structures. 
Swamp Creek will be open from 7:00 to 9:00pm.

Here is a link for more information about Swamp Creek:  http://scwrra.org
Maps and information for the other tour stops at the Swamp Creek location. The other two layouts on the tour are open from 7:00pm to 10:00pm. Here is information about the layouts, which are both located south of Edmonds:

  • The first is Burr Stewart’s Burrlington Railroad HO layout. Many of you have visited Burr’s layout before, but as train layouts are always a work in progress, there is always something new to see when you visit.  Here’s a link to Burr’s blog about his layout:  http://burrlingtonnorthern.blogspot.com

These tours are open to NMRA members and a guest. If possible, please RSVP to Lisa Murray at mattinata@outlook.com or 206.310.6778 so we can get a sense of how many will be attending. 

Layout Tour

A Very Busy Spring

Written by Russ Segner
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By Russ Segner

The 2019 Sn3 Symposium is just around the corner.  Come explore some of the finest Sn3 model railroads on the planet. There will be excellent clinics, a vendor room, world-class layouts on display, and a contest.

Register now at www.sn3seattle.com!

Sn3 Symposium – Bellevue Sheraton
April 4 – 6
12 clinics featuring national instructors
Local layout tours
Check the website for details.
www.sn3seattle.com

Other notable events coming soon:

  • Kootenay Express 2019 | May 29 – June 2, 2019
    • The Cranbrook History Centre is a museum and archive dedicated to the research, preservation, and restoration of heritage pertaining to the history of Cranbrook and the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is located adjacent to both active railway operations and the Convention Hotel.  https://www.kootenayexpress2019.ca

Convention or Meet, Layout Tour, News

North End Clinic Annual Tour of Homes, June 2018

Written by Al Turnbull
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by Lisa Murray

On June 7, the North End Clinic will once again host a layout tour. Each year the group organizes a tour of model train layouts in local homes so that members can see real life applications of the modeling ideas presented at 4D NRMA clinics.

This year we will be visiting two professionally designed HO layouts, as well as a professionally designed N scale layout. Also we will visit a vintage train collection that focuses on pre-war tinplate standard and O gauge trains which can run simultaneously on custom 5-rail track.

The tour is open to active NMRA members and their guests and will run from 7 to 10pm on Thursday, June 7, 2018.

The tour will start at the Edmonds Historical Museum (www.historicedmonds.org) which is located at 118 5th Avenue North in Edmonds, WA. All of the homes on the tour are in the Edmonds area.

Members will check in at the museum to receive a map and directions to the different homes on the tour. They will also be able to visit the permanent train display at the museum and meet the museum volunteers who keep the layout operational and open to the public.

Because the layouts on the tour are in private residences, we ask, out of respect for the people opening their homes to fellow modelers, that members limit the number of guests that they bring. We also encourage you to carpool if you can, as parking may be limited at some of the locations.

Also, for those members with limited mobility, please be aware that walking up and down stairs is required to access one of the layouts.

A big thank you to Bobj Berger for organizing this year’s model layout tour.

Please contact Lisa Murray at 206.310.6778 or mattinata@outlook.com if you have questions or need additional information.

Layout Tour

Coal Creek Lumber Co, Model Railroading On TV

Written by Russ Segner
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Russ Segner

Update: Here is a link provided by John Prentice from “Seattle Refined” with video and a picture gallery: http://seattlerefined.com/lifestyle/we-took-a-ride-on-a-tiny-train-and-loved-it-all-aboard

This Thursday, February 2, at 3 PM, KOMO TV, Channel 4, will broadcast a segment on local model railroading. The broadcast will feature the recent train shows as well as a segment of video taken of my layout, “The Coal Creek Lumber Co”. This is part of the “Seattle Refined” community show, in case you want to set your DVR.

Al Lowe, Fred Hamilton, and Dave Woodrell joined me in an operating session on my layout. The session lasted over an hour. No derailments or collisions. It was a lot of fun and I hope many of you can see it.

Layout Tour, Operations

PNRA and BEMRRC Holiday Open House

Written by Cliff Green
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Gary Tarbox, PNRA Executive Director

For anyone within driving distance of the Puget Sound area, the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive (PNRA) and the Boeing Employee Model Railroad Club (BEMRRC) are holding an open house December 26 – 31, 2016.

BEMRRC will have their new modular layout running for the first time and their permanent HO layout (under construction) at PNRA will also be open for tours.

PNRA will have displays and conduct tours of the preservation storage area with its newly installed mobile shelving.

Held in the archives are Northern Pacific (NP), Great Northern (GN), Milwaukee Road and Spokane, Portland, and Seattle (SP&S) materials, as well as logging, Interurban, Amtrak and short line resources.

Date: December 26 – 31, 2016 (Mon thru Sat)
Time: Noon to 6:00 pm on Monday thru Friday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday
Location: 425 SW 153rd Street, Burien, WA 98166

Please contact me for information at Info@PNRArchive.comcastbiz.net or 206-349-6242.

Layout Tour, Railroad History

Photos of Eastside Layout Tour on Oct 1

Written by Cliff Green
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Cliff Green

Port scene on Kevin Klettke's Washington Northern HO scale layout (Cliff Green photo)

Port scene on Kevin Klettke’s Washington Northern HO scale layout (Cliff Green photo)

The 4th Division (PNR, NMRA) is fortunate to have a large number of excellent layouts, and I try to view them whenever there is a layout tour or open house. In particular, I’ve attended the well organized Olympia Layout Tour many times (thanks go to Scott Buckley and others for putting this together every year), and view as many layouts as I can on PNR Regional Conventions and other open house occasions.

Russ Segner organized an Eastside Layout Tour this year, split into two separate days, and I was able to attend the second tour on Oct 1. The Grab Iron post for that event, which contains descriptions of each layout, can be viewed by clicking here. There were four layouts open on that day, ranging in location from Fife to Newcastle, WA.

This is a selected set of photos that I took that day (I will upload photos of a couple of my Olympia Layout Tour visits in a future post). As is always the case on Grab Iron posts, clicking on the small image in a post will display the larger sized (and more detailed) image.

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Layout Tour, Narrow Gauge

Request for Photos of the HO Scale Rawlins, Lincoln, and Greeley Railway in Olympia

Written by Cliff Green
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Robert L Grove

Turntable on Robert Grove's HO scale Rawlins, Lincoln, and Greeley Railway layout (Cliff Green photo)

Turntable on Robert Grove’s HO scale Rawlins, Lincoln, and Greeley Railway layout (Cliff Green photo)

The Rawlins, Lincoln & Greeley Railway was one of the HO scale layouts in Olympia, Washington. It has been dismantled in preparation for a move. After dismantling most of the 9’×13′ three level core of the plan, I realized I had not taken any photographs in the past few years.

Anyone who visited “Central Wyoming in the summer of 1950” who has photos they are willing to share may e-mail digital copies to me at grove25@comcast.net. The RL&G was open during the 2015 and 2016 layout tours and open houses in Olympia. Your help will be appreciated and whatever you have will be accepted with joy.

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Layout Tour, Member Ads, Olympia Clinic

Eastside Layout Tour on October 1

Written by Russ Segner
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Russ Segner

On Saturday, October 1st from 1 to 5 PM is a wonderful opportunity to visit four fine layouts located about half an hour apart in Fife, Auburn, Kent, and Bellevue along the I-405 corridor and Kent / Auburn / Puyallup valley area. Take advantage of this chance to meet some great model railroaders and see how they have designed, built, and operate their layouts.

(Editor’s Note: The layouts are listed in south to north order. Two of the listings below have links to dedicated layout web pages, and the others have links to web pages with pictures of the layout.)

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Layout Tour