We are going high-tech! This year’s Annual Meeting cannot be held at a hotel, so no mediocre lunch or uncomfortable meeting room chairs. In fact, it’s FREE!
You can attend in your casuals, just need tops for sure. We will meet online using Zoom. All you will need is a computer with camera and audio or a tablet or smartphone . Many of you have already been in such meetings and know how it works.
All 4D Board Members will be there. We will convene a brief business meeting which will give opportunity for any members to ask questions.
A brief review of last year will be given and some ideas of how we will go forward, including any changes required to deal with the current health crisis.
We will also present the Golden Grab Iron Award, as well as some special recognitions by the Superintendent.
The meeting will be followed by two online clinics, each 45 minutes, including time for questions.
So, save the date. You will receive an invitation a few days before the meeting via email with a link to the meeting and the password you’ll need to get in.
I was invited to an on-line clinic yesterday by one of the divisions in Texas. It was great. I got to interact with several guys I had met in various Conventions. Lots of good ideas were shared.
This reminded me of a recent conversation. Someone asked me, “What are the advantages of membership in the NMRA?”
So, I wrote a draft statement and shared it with Al Lowe and this is what we came up with:
The advantages of NMRA membership
We share. The NMRA is the one organization dedicated to sharing interest in model railroading. We care about the future of the hobby by leading in the establishment of standards used by manufacturers and modelers. This has promoted a wide array of factory-built models as well as electronics used in the hobby.
We promote the hobby on a consistent basis to the general public at train shows and museums. A great many of our members are volunteers in restoration and operation of historic railway equipment. The NMRA led in recently establishing a very large permanent exhibit on model railroading at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
We educate one another and the public about railroads, their history and contribution to our economy. We also educate and promote safety around trains.
Membership comes with the NMRA magazine which contains information on activities locally and worldwide as well as articles on model building.
We have an array of local, regional and national meetings to share experience in “how to” clinics, history and research on various rail operations.
We challenge each other in model building contests with awards for excellence. We learn from each other and many work together in construction and operation of home layouts.
We have a program called Master Model Railroader which requires completion of work in the major skills of model railroading. This is a challenging program and the MMR Award and Designation is a lot of work well respected in the hobby.
The 4th Division has a strong effort going with modular layouts in several scales. This a great way to meet and work with other model railroaders, to improve modeling skills and share the hobby with the public. Camaraderie is the glue that keeps us active and strong. Model Railroading is fun.
I invite you to join us.
Russ Segner, 4D Superintendent 206 200 2211
So, if someone asks you about membership in the NMRA, here are some thoughts. Share this message.
The 4th Division Board of Directors conducted an online meeting last Saturday using the application ZOOM. It was very successful with a number of participants in addition to the Board members. The minutes of the meeting will be posted on the 4D website soon. Because there were no additional nominations to fill the one Director position and the Superintendent position, the Board voted to close nominations and submit the names of Ed Ives for Director and Russ Segner as Superintendent to the membership.
One of the actions the Board took was to amend the Rules and Procedures Manual of the By-Laws that related to the conduct of the election. We have in the past done this with a mailed ballot. The Board has decided to handle this election and future elections by electronic ballot to the 399 members who have email addresses on file. A paper ballot will be mailed to the 34 members who do not have email addresses on file.
Jack Hamilton will be sending the electronic ballots via email – a “PNR Special Run” email – and Mike Slease will send the paper ballots as done in previous election.
The email ballots and written ballots will have instructions on how to vote and return your vote.Please respond quickly so you do not forget. We have had great participation in all our elections and I hope this new method will achieve even greater results.
While in quarantine I have been working on the railroad and want to share some photos. A new addition arrived at the TTT, it is a LGB model 2080D. If you not familiar with the designation D after the model number it means Dampf (steam). I decided to install a sound decoder and fan driven smoke generator. My original choice was a Zimo decoder but found out that there was extra cost involved for the sound so I checked with ESU and they had the proper sound to install and ordered the decoder and their smoke generator. The installation involved removing the control board and connecting the wiring for the lights and motor to the decoder, installing the smoke generator and two speakers. There was no soldering involved since the decoder had terminal strips. After installation the decoder was programmed with the ESU Lokprogrammer the main change was to program the chuff to the wheel rotation. A little background on the real locomotive that the model is based on. The locomotive is a 2-6-2T, the German designation is 1-C-1 2ht. the 2ht means it carries 2 tons of coal, the letter h means high pressure steam and the t means tender locomotive. In 1938 the Reichsbahn decided to build a series of narrow gage locomotives of different wheel configuration that would have interchangeable parts. The first locomotive that was built was BR 99 6001 which is the 2-6-2T and it was the only one built because the contract was canceled due to the gearing up for war production. The BR99 6001 is still in operation on the HSB Selketahlbahn in the Harz Mountains. There are YouTube videos of this locomotive running in the winter scenery last year. There are two photos one of the above model sitting at the station for passenger loading and the other is of the Uintah Railway #51, a 2-6-6-2T, coming out of tunnel #2 on the lower level.
The report of the Nominating Committee is that Ed Ives has been nominated to another term as Director and Russ Segner has agreed to run for another term. Since there were no other nominations, an informal survey of the current Board supports the idea of not following the required formal sending of ballots by mail to membership. This will save about $500.
At the Board meeting on the 18th, we will open the meeting online using Zoom to receive any further nominations. If however, no further nominations are made, the Board will discuss a formal motion to forego the mailed paper ballot this election cycle. So, if you want to make a nomination on the 18th, be ready to join the meeting via the internet. The link to the Zoom meeting will be sent in a Grab Iron email, so keep an eye on your email. You can also contact me for the meeting link.
The current COVD-19 crisis has certainly altered the way we interact at work and home. It is also forcing some changes in our hobby. We can’t run to the hobby shop or craft store for supplies and we can’t get together to work on or operate our layouts with others. Of course, our health is the most important thing right now. But there are some things we can do together anyway.
Many of us are using social media such as Skype and Zoom to share things over the internet. That’s the way our Board will conduct business for the next few meetings. It is also a way we can better communicate throughout the 4th Division. Distance and traffic have become big impediments to our clinics and train shows. So, we are exploring ways to do clinics over the internet. So, check your email frequently.
Our next Board meeting was scheduled for April 18 at 10 AM . We intend to use the application Zoom to conduct that meeting online. It worked well in a test run Saturday. The neat thing about this is that many of our members who want to participate can do so. Many of you already use this in your workplace. The link to the Zoom meeting will be sent in a Grab Iron email, so keep an eye on your email. You can also contact me for the meeting link. russseg@gmail.com
Invitees will be organized in a waiting room and the moderator of the meeting will invite you in. That way we can control participation to members only. You will be able to ask questions and view any documents or exhibits we are discussing.
If you have questions, please email me or call me at 206 200 2211. Russ
During this interesting time of following the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” directive from the state, I am finding things a bit more challenging to avoid “honey-dos” since I’m in the house all the time. Sure this may be a great time to work on house projects but what fun is that.
So in order to get away from the world and especially chores for a while, I imagined a setup for my modules that could be used for testing and motivation to work on the real important home projects – model railroad stuff!
I am part of the Pacific Northwest On30 Modular Group and have six modules in my shop. Most of the time however the modules are stored in their transportation configuration and are only set up if I need to fix track or plant a structure. They share the shop with other vehicles and projects that usually get more attention and I normally don’t have a lot of time to work on them let alone set them up and run stuff on them.
Well the last few weeks have been a different story. Being in quarantine and working all day from my kitchen table “office” on the phone and on the computer, I am pretty much toast at the end of the work day and need to get out of the house. The only place I can go is the yard or the shop. While out organizing some stuff in the shop while I was bored, I found some birch plywood that could be possibly be used make a couple 22 inch radius curves. I thought, hey I’ve got four straight five foot modules that I could connect together and have an oval for continuous running. And so was born the idea for the “Isolation Circle Central”.
Normally a storage area, this is now the domain of the “Isolation Circle Central”.
A few evenings of chopping wood and laying track resulted in
a seemingly basic circle to run trains around on my finished and work-in-progress
modules. There is no way my ol’ lady is
going to negotiate that duckunder – so the “social distancing” part of the
setup was an extreme success.
Nemah Valley No 8, a 2-4-4-2 passing the water tank at Willapa Cranberry Farms module.
The layout is powered by a Digitrax Zephyr with a Digitrax PR3 to interface with a computer and run JMRI WiThrottles. This way I can run two (or six) locos at once on the cellphone Engine Driver app. I also modified one of my modules to provide a programming track for use with the PR3. Normally we program locos “off layout” on a test track but since I’m using the PR3 for the computer anyway, may as well upgrade capability and use the direct programming feature also. It is certainly much more convenient to program and test on the same track.
JMRI “Engine Driver” app is used as a WiFi throttle with up to six locos that can be controlled at a time. One or two is plenty for normal use.This engine house track has been modified to also serve as a programming track using a Digitrax PR3 interface.The Digitrax PR3 can be seen temporarily screwed to the module support leg structure. Hidden switch provides selection between “Run” and “Program”.
For our PNWOn30 Group we use JMRI Operations Pro to provide switchlists for our operations under TT&TO rules. My modules are already built up as locations with the appropriate spurs in the JMRI program for operations. All I had to do was create a modified route to only include my four modules and select cars from my inventory to be used for operations.
Dedicated computer for JMRI is clamped to a plank that is also clamped to the module legs.
So, with little effort I had JMRI setup to run switchlists specifically for my setup. I designated one of the corners as a staging yard and run a route from staging to staging traversing all the modules and performing set outs and pick ups according to the JMRI generated switchlists. Between each module “location” I do a complete lap around the layout to get some distance before the next module stop. All told the “Circle Job” takes a little over an hour to complete. That’s the time for at least one cup of a refreshing beverage and certainly supports the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” directive.
Remember when black and white photos were all the rage. This is a Mount Blue kit On30 caboose.The No. 8 heading through the Bay Lumber Company – Camp 4 modules. Setting up the modules and running trains allows for practicing some photography that I normally never have time to do at train shows.
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:
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.
4th Division Membership Chairman Bob Rorabaugh steps aside from the role:
I must express my appreciation for the privilege of representing the NMRA and, in particular, our 4th Division (PNR), as the “face” to the public. My resignation was official at the end of February. These last five or six years went quickly by. It’s time to pass the baton to someone with fresh enthusiasm and ideas. It’s past time for me to actually build a layout!
Note well: I’m willing to serve and support our next Membership Chairman as others have assisted me. I’ve prepped ahead promotion material, put some procedures in place, and can actually “stand in” on occasion, if needed. Call any of the Board members you know (or me) if you are interested in what the role entails. My cell # is 206-948-9511
Again, I’m grateful for friendships formed with members of the 4D Board, help from some of you, and for this way to express my love of/interest in people. The many of you I’ve met made representing you and our shared hobby a delight.
