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Category: Mt Vernon Clinic
The Mount Vernon Clinic news
Mt Vernon NMRA Clinic Special Interest Discussion Group
By Tom Buckingham
Jim Betz and Ted Becker have been discussing some kind of online activity during the current “lock down”. To that end, Jim has created a Special Interest Discussion Group called PNWRRModelers. It can be found at:
https://groups.io/g/PNWRRModelers/
PNW Railroad Modelers is a discussion group for model railroaders in the Pacific Northwest
The “host”, Groups.io is a “replacement” for yahoo groups if you are familiar with that. If you were a member of a yahoo group you have probably already learned how to use groups.io and are active in some groups. To gain access you will need to click the “Join The Group” button and then make a post to it to introduce yourself to the other members. The first post will go to Jim and he will approve it (this discourages scoundrels) and you will be live from then on.
The only thing you have to do is to choose which type of notice for posts you will get from the group. Most will choose “Digest” mode which means that you will get one or at most two digests a day that will collect all the posts for that time period. You will get that in an email. You can read and forget, read and reply, or just ignore/delete.
According to Jim it’s really easy to use.
Tom
Clinics For The Week Of March 16 Are Cancelled
The Clinics for the week of March 16 are cancelled due to the situation with the COVID-19 virus. As the situation changes day to day, the events calendar is being updated as needed.
Clinics cancelled this week:
- Mount Vernon Clinic, Monday March 16th
- Eastside Clinic, Wednesday March 18th
- Olympia Clinic, Friday March 20th
If you have a question about the status of an event, you can check the events calendar or contact the clinic organizer who can be found on the clinics page.
Clinic Report – Mount Vernon – February 2020
Click here to read the Mt. Vernon Clinic Report for February 2020.
Mount Vernon Clinic Important Announcements
By Ted Becker
The Mount Vernon Clinic is changing its meeting night to the third Monday of the month beginning in October 2019 and will continue on the third Monday after that. The next meeting will be October 21. The clinic is still located at the Mount Vernon Senior Center and the meeting starts at 7:00. This change moves us away from being back-to-back with our sister clinic in Oak Harbor and opens participation to folks with Thursday conflicts.
Also our meeting room will be in the craft room where we were last season.
The previously announced change to the larger meeting room did not work out.
To kick off our meeting on the new date will be a clinic on decals by Nick
Muff and Al Carter which is shaping up to be a very informative presentation.
Ted Becker
Clinics Happening This Week
By Anton Faulk
The following 4D Clinics are happening this week:
- Tuesday Sept 10th: The Westside Clinic meets Tuesday evening. The program will be “NMRA Gauge, How to use it” presented by Jack Hamilton. Event Details
- Wednesday Sept 11th: The Skagit Valley and Whidbey Island Clinic meets Wednesday evening. The program will be “Scratch building techniques, tools and materials” presented by Cliff Aaker. Event Details
- Thursday Sept 12th: The Tacoma Clinic meets Thursday evening. The program will be “Weathering techniques using Pan Pastels” presented by Kurt Laidlaw. Event Details
- Thursday Sept 12th: The Mount Vernon Model Railroad Clinic resumes Thursday evening. The program will be “What I did this summer.” Event Details
Full event details can be found on the Events page.
Anton
Clinic Report – Mount Vernon – May 9 2019
By Dale Bearden & Karl Kleeman
Nick Muff’s “More Than” An HO Layout
May’s meeting was hosted by Nick Muff at his residence. We were privileged to visit Nick’s incredible” train room” and his Kansas City Southern HO layout. First, the “MORE THAN.” Nick has a full size F3 cab front end in his train room. It has the cab interior with all the original equipment. And if that is not enough, he has recreated part of a passenger car. The car was recreated but has an all-original interior. And he has the furnishings and accessories of the proper era.
Nick telling his story 
Cab interior
Now we know that most of you have seen Nick’s train room more than once but perhaps all of you do not know the whole story. When Karl and I arrived at Nicks, we met Jim Betz, a new member of our group, and just like myself, this was his first visit to the layout. I’m sure I wasn’t the first who wanted to hear Nick explain the story of how he came to have a complete F3 cab in his basement. He set out to buy a locomotive throttle tower quadrant and possibly a brake quadrant to display. Nick learned they were scrapping locomotives at a Seattle salvage yard. He went down just looking for the throttle and brake units and was told by the owner’s son that an F3 was waiting to be scrapped. As I recall Nick’s story, Nick and the scrap yard worker set about recovering the throttle and brake units for Nick. Nick inquired about what would happen to the locomotive, and learned that it would be scrapped, so he asked about purchasing a portion of the cab. The yardman said, why don’t you just take the whole cab? Nick was hesitant so he made a deal for most of the cab, minus the nose. On the way, home his wife asked what would become of the nose. Nick replied, probably just make Toyota parts out of it. They looked at each other, decided that they really didn’t want that to happen so they turned around, and went back and made arrangements to purchase the full cab and it’s interior equipment. In order to transport the Cab economically, Nick had it cut into 3 pieces, and brought it home on a U- Haul trailer.
I asked Nick, how he got it into the basement. He said he had a slab poured and he had a friend with a crane so they lowered it onto the slab. We learned the full story of how it was reassembled, welded and painted. The question was asked what would happen to it when they move? Nick commented that one wall of the basement was specially built such that it was not a supporting wall and could be removed so that the full cab could be removed. A project like this would be intimidating for most of us. But you get the feeling nothing intimidates Nick.
Venue Change – March 14 Mount Vernon Clinic
By Al Carter
For this month’s clinic, we are unable to meet at our usual location due to circumstances beyond our control. Fortunately we have found an alternate location – a room in the Burlington Public Library. Here are the directions:
Burlington Public Library
820 E Washington Ave.
Burlington, WA 98233
Highway 20 to Fairhaven Avenue,
East on Fairhaven Avenue (past Suzy’s old hobby shop),
Right on Anacortes,
Left on East Washington Avenue
Enter through the front doors, conference rooms are off the lobby. We are in the Skagit River Side room.
3rd Annual Joint Clinic Presented By Mount Vernon & Whidbey Island NMRA Groups
Saturday, March 23rd
Mount Vernon Senior Center – 1401 Cleveland St., Mount Vernon, WA
Doors open at 9:00 – First Clinic at 9:30
Everyone is welcome! This year’s event will provide modelers with several mini-clinics with presentations & demonstrations on:
- Weathering with Pan Pastels – Al Carter
- Introduction to Arduino – Ted Becker
- Improving Appearance of Flex Track – Al Carter
- Layout Design / Planning – Russ Segner
- Installing DCC Decoders – Roger Johnson
- Railroad Simulation with Trainz by Di Voss
- More to be announced…
The Golden Grab Iron committee will be making the GGI award presentation at this clinic.
Roger Johnson is requesting people bring locos and decoders for him to install.
NMRA Build Competition and Photo-Match Contest
A variety of scratch built and kit built projects will be on display (all scales) for the final judging and awards presentation. Come see what some of the best modelers in the region have put together as they complete for a table-full of neat prizes!
Sponsored by Xtrains Model Train Supplies
Swap Tables will be available – no dealers please.
Just modelers looking to thin out their stock.
(For more info on the swap tables, contact: Al Carter at tabooma@msn.com)
Bring your friends. Learn from the best. Have fun!
Upcoming Clinic – Mount Vernon Clinic – November 8
By Tom Buckingham
At our November 8 clinic Mark Malmkar will dazzle us with photos and information he gathered while spending 2 weeks on the other side of the world!
The full program for the evening will be:
- Review of upcoming events and clinics
- Display your work! We invite everyone to bring model railroad items to display in the Showcase. It can be a completed model, work in progress, new purchase, old favorite, photo, book or any other item model railroad related you would like to share. These will be displayed on the long counter space we now have available.
- Tool & Tips: If you’ve found a tool or gadget especially helpful, bring it in and share the benefits with the group.
- Build Contest: Bring your entry forms … and bring your projects for the build contest. Let’s see who’s doing what!
- Clinic Topic: Russian Railroads and Railroad Museums
Meeting place:
Mount Vernon Senior Center
1401 Cleveland St., Mount Vernon
Time: 7:00 pm