You are browsing archives for
What’s happening now in the 4th Division
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:
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.
In communication with our gracious venue host – Summerhill Assisted Living Facility – we have cancelled our March 12th clinic due to risk to residents and visitors during this time of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak. In accordance with the Washington State Department of Health guidelines related to the outbreak emergency, Summerhill will be enforcing a “no-visitor” policy until further notice. SV&W respects and understands this decision.
We are still planning to have our regular clinic on the 8th of April at the Summerhill venue provided we have better news in a few weeks on this epidemic. In mean-time we are advising all model railroaders to be safe and observe good preventative measures.
Rich
Why I signed up several years ago to serve as Superintendent.
Serving as your 4D Superintendent is a privilege. I get to act on behalf of all members in trying to enhance the experience of model railroading. So, I have tried to meet as many members as possible, ask them what their interests in the hobby are and what skills they were interested in sharing. I have learned a lot that helps me in my modeling and I am constantly surprised and challenged to do better in my model building. There are a lot of you out there who do share and teach others.
Recruiting remains the biggest challenge, trying to get others to share experience and expertise. Many have been willing to do so. That’s why we have such a successful schedule of local clinics and modular layouts. There are also very strong regional efforts such as Oly-Ops and the annual Tacoma Layout Tours.
The benefits to me include working with you and others on the Board and at the events such as MOHAI and Pacific Science Center shows. So, I thank all of you who do give time to the hobby through 4D activities.
Officers of 4D such as Superintendent are elected every two years. Several years ago, I ran successfully for Assistant Superintendent and then became Superintendent. After many years now, I became concerned that others might want to put their views forward and lead us to greater success. That’s why I said I would like to step away to give someone else the opportunity. So, I have recommended to the Board that we will extend the nominating period one more month to see.
If you want to serve or nominate someone else, contact Lisa Murray, Nominating Committee Chair, mattinata@outlook.com.
Thanks for reading.
Russ
The Fourth Division is pleased to announce that this year’s Spring Meet will be held on May 16–17, 2020. Saturday the 16th will be filled with great clinic sessions at Everett Community College. Sunday the 17th will be Layout Tour Open Houses, where you’ll get to see the great layouts of some local model railroaders.
Full details will be coming soon. For right now, mark the weekend of May 16-17 on your calendar. You won’t want to miss it!
Al
George Bogatiuk, Director of Sales and Support for Soundtraxx will be at the Northwest Railway Archives in Burien this Sunday evening for a special presentation and clinic on Soundtraxx decoders.
Bring all your questions about installations and programing decoders for your specific locomotives.
The meeting will start at 6:30 at the Archives located at:
425 SW 153rd St
Burien, WA
For more information or questions, contact me at:
russseg@gmail.com
206 200 2211
There will be a Tacoma/Puyallup area Model Railroad tour on
Saturday and Sunday April 18 & 19, 2020, from 9:00am – 4:00pm.
There will be multiple layouts which will be open to Model Railroad fans. Some will be open Saturday only, others on Sunday only.
Maps to, and descriptions of, each of the layouts will be available starting at 8:00 am on the 18th, at Rob’s Trains and Hobbies. He will be opening his store early and will be offering a 10% discount to those requesting a tour map.
This is a great opportunity to see some excellent modeling in all stages of completion, and save on your hobby needs!
Rob’s Trains and Hobbies
5423 South Tacoma Way
Tacoma, WA 98409
253-472-7732
Article and Photos by Rich Thom
Twenty-three gathered at Summer Hill in Oak Harbor for February’s SV&W NMRA Clinic, welcomed by Clinic Chair Rich Blake. After reviewing the calendar, Rich to everyone’s delight showed some photos of Al Frasch’s new N-scale layout that he’s nearly completed in his new home near Tucson, AZ. Al, a former long-time member, newsletter editor, and tireless booster of our clinic as well as model railroad operations in the area, built his new layout in less than two years. Not unexpected from this energetic modeler—good work, Al!
For Show-and-Tell, Alan Murray brought in his O-scale road overpass (Fig 1).
This is a work-in-progress and Alan will describe the overpass construction in detail at our March meeting. He brought it this evening to show the details of the bents and stringers that will (by next month!) be hidden by roadway decking. The overpass has a home: it will feature in one town on Jon Bentz’s in progress On30 layout in Freeland, joining many other scratch structures already in place. Your reporter visited Jon’s layout recently and it will be a welcome addition to our clinic area’s operations-focused layouts. Beta-testing will start this Spring; no pressure, Jon!
The main subject matter at the meeting was “The World’s Last Woodburners” presented by your Grab Iron reporter. That’s a rather sweeping title, because woodburning steam locos were scattered around the world here and there, on preserved railroads, in museums and so forth, but only in a very few places did entire fleets of motive power in everyday, workaday use still burn wood. Your reporter visited two such places in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The first was the Philippines.
The Philippine woodburners were found on the island of Negros, one of the country’s 7,000-plus islands. Here were the majority of the Philippines’ Sugar Centrals, 45 of which were founded by American companies, most between 1912 and 1927. Victorias Milling Company (Fig 3) was the largest of them all, at its peak grinding over 16,000 tons of cane each day during the milling season. All of the motive power—in this case 0-8-0’s—burned wood. Combined, the sugar railroads had over 1,000 miles of track fanning out like a spider web from the coast into the cane fields, on several gauges. Victorias had the most unusual: 600mm, which at 1 foot 11 and 5/8 inches was essentially 2 foot gauge—but not quite!
George Bogatiuk, in charge of Sales and Support for Soundtraxx will be at Eastside Trains In Kirkland on Thursday from 4p to close.
He will have a vendor table at the Monroe Show Saturday from 10a-5p and Sunday 10a-4p. He will be giving a clinic on Saturday morning at 10:45 “Introduction to Tsunami2 and setup.” Things the decoder can do for you and why you want it.
Please email me if you are interested.
Russ Segner
206 200 2211
russseg@gmail.com
This is the second call for announcing the Eastside Clinic’s Mini Clinic Event to be held this year in March. The Mini Clinic event is a group of four short clinics, not more than about 15 minutes each in length, to be presented during the March 2020 Eastside Get Together Clinic. Each of the Clinic topics were determined by popular vote. After the votes were tabulated, there were the four most popular topics. One of topics already has a clinician volunteer. The remaining three listed below still need clinicians. WE DESPERATELY NEED VOLUNTEER CLINICIANS TO PRESENT CLINICS FOR THESE THREE TOPICS:
What I’m looking for is a fairly high level, short, summarizing clinic about 15 minutes in duration on each of these topics from the three clinicians.
So, if you have any interest at all in presenting a clinic on any one of the above topics at the Eastside Mini Clinic Event in March, please let me know. Call (425) 466-1490 or email abrikoff@frontier.com. Thank you!
It’s that time of year – elections. Every year, we elect some of our leadership by a vote of the general membership. This year, the two positions open will be one Director and District Superintendent. A nominating committee has been appointed chaired by Lisa Murray. If you are interested or want to nominate someone, please contact Lisa Murray at 206 310 6778 or mattinata@outlook.com.
The responsibilities for the positions are outlined in this excerpt from the By-Laws
SECTION 6. DUTIES OF OFFICERS The duties of the Officers shall be:
A. BOARD OF DIRECTORS. The management of the Division shall be vested in the BOD except as specifically stated herein. The Directors shall establish rules and regulations for the operation of the Division, approve appointment of appoint Members to standing committees, and assist Officers and committees in the performance of their duties.
B. SUPERINTENDENT. Serve as the executive officer of the Division; preside over BOD and General Membership meetings; sign all contracts or other instruments authorized by the BOD; appoint various committee chairpersons and ad hoc committee members as needed; and serve on the PNR Board.
C. ASST. SUPERINTENDENT. The Asst. Superintendent shall perform all duties assigned by the Superintendent.
D. DIRECTOR. Serve as the direct representative of the members. Act in the best interest of the members in the management of the Division.
E. SECRETARY. Keep minutes of all BOD and General Membership meetings. Submit copies of such minutes to the Editor by the next Grab Iron deadline; submit to the Secretary of State an Annual Report as required by RCW 24.03.395; and perform other secretarial duties deemed necessary or as specified elsewhere within.
F. TREASURER. Receive and keep safe all monies and securities of the Division in such manner as may be designated by the BOD; disburse money in accordance with the approved budget; maintain books of account; furnish a monthly Treasurer’s report to the Editor by the next Grab Iron deadline; furnish an annual financial statement to the BOD; submit to the Secretary of State an Annual Report as required by RCW 24.03.395; prepare tax returns as required by the IRS. Perform other treasury duties deemed necessary or as specified elsewhere herein. The Treasurer will be bonded, with the bonding fee paid by the Division.
The position of Director to be voted upon is now held by Ed Ives and he has indicated he wants to serve another term.
Russ Segner is our current Superintendent and he has indicated that he will not run for another term.
Serving as an officer in the 4D is a privilege and a way of contributing to the ongoing success and enjoyment of our hobby. Officers serve two-year terms.
Nominations need to be in hand by March 1, 2020 with ballots completed by June 15. If you have questions, contact Russ Segner at 206 200 2211 or russseg@gmail.com or Lisa Murray at 206 310 6778 or mattinata@outlook.com.