Category: News

Gerry Leone, NMRA Communications Director

The Board of Directors will meet in Grand Rapids Friday–Sunday, July 27–29. While the Friday meeting is a closed caucus, most of the Saturday and Sunday meetings are open to all members. Check at the convention for location.

We hope to announce soon our new Director of Marketing and his team who will meet with the NMRA leadership team inGrand Rapids to formalize the process of developing a program to recruit and retain members.

The Standards & Conformance Department needs an ATA Certified Translator to convert German documents into English. If you have the qualifications and interest, contact Didrik Voss, S&C Department Manager.

Atlantic District Director Nobby Clarke and his team have been invited to bring the NMRA Publicity Booth to the last-ever U.S. Railroad convention in Switzerland this October. This is a huge event, with attendance numbering in the thousands. More info here.

The 2012 Annual Convention begins July 29. Here’s some last-minute information:

• Grand Rails 2012’s former 6-part ticket is now a booklet containing maps, directions, descriptions and schedules for the self-guided layout tours. The booklet is attendees’ single pass to all 70+ layouts on tour.
• Sunset Valley Oregon System passes are also still available. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see one of the world’s most famous layouts.
• You can put your hand on an SW-9 throttle at the Coopersville & Marne Railroad, beginning Thursday morning, August 2 at 9 a.m. Operate for 15 minutes for $35. Register at the convention tour desk.

Al Carter

Here are the results of the recent 4^th Division election:

Superintendent: Ken Liesse

Director, Position 2: J.J. Johnston

By Laws Revision: Approved, 155 to 4

There were 163 ballots submitted, of which 162 were valid. The numbers do not add up because some voters only voted for one of the two positions open and some chose not to vote on the By Laws. Their ballots were otherwise acceptable for the categories they did vote in, so we counted those votes.

This year’s ballot committee consisted of myself as Chairperson, plus Steve Jaffray and John White (both of Anacortes).

My personal thanks to all four candidates who contended for the two positions. In my long history in the Fourth Division, I can recall several times when there was only one candidate for a given position. Your interest in the Fourth Division’s leadership is appreciated and I hope that you will consider running for office in the future.

Gerry Leone, NMRA Communications Director

The Ballot Committee has issued the official results of the Spring election. 7 ballots were unopened since they were postmarked after the deadline..

President

Ballots received – 1680
Valid ballots cast – 1569
Charlie W. Getz, IV, HLM – 1550

Vice President – Administration

Ballots received – 1680
Valid ballots cast – 1637
Dave Thornton – 723
Clark Kooning, MMR 588
Howard Goodwin 326

Vice President – Special Projects

Ballots received – 1680
Valid ballots cast – 1599
Bill Kaufman – 1104
James “Lumpy” Lupfer – 493
Norman Frowly (Write-in) – 1
Charles W Getz, IV, HLM (Write-in) – 1

Eastern District Director

Ballots received – 523
Valid ballots cast – 472
John Roberts, MMR, HLM – 461
Various individual write-in votes – 9 (on each)

Pacific District Director

Ballots received – 90
Valid ballots cast – 90
Mike Bartlett – 53
Robert Peterson – 25
Kelly Loyd = 12

At-Large North America Director

Ballots Received – 1565
Valid ballots cast – 1477
Miles Hale, MMR – 865
Mike Brestel – 610
Dave Barrow – 1
Whit Johnson – 1

The Board of Directors will meet inGrand Rapids on Friday, July 27, Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29. While the Friday meeting is a closed caucus, most of the Saturday and Sunday meetings are open to all members. At this time the meeting room hasn’t been determined, so check with the convention hotel after you arrive if you’re interested in attending.

The NMRA has incorporated in the State of Missouri. One of the driving factors was to enable the Board to conduct electronic meetings (a practice not allowed inOhio, where we were formerly incorporated). This lets the Board vote on matters of significance in the time between the Winter and Summer meetings. The move also provides the proper opportunity to revisit the regulations (bylaws) as we update them to satisfy the Missouri Corporate requirements.

GrandRails 2012 has just signed up a rep from QSI who will be presenting several clinics about their brand new diesel sound system. The system lets users control sound and light functions to match specific railroad practices. Check the clinic schedule for this addition.

Coming soon: an announcement on the convention website about self-guided tours at GrandRails2012. Watch for it

Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers, at gr2012volunteers@gmail.com for more details.

Bob Beise and Frank Dekker

Gerald Edward Kelso was born March 9, 1935 in Spokane, WA to Alvin and Pearl Kelso who preceded him in death. He attended Cheney High School and graduated in 1954. Shortly after graduating he enlisted in the United States Navy Seabees. He took his basic training at Treasure Island, CA. After basic training he was stationed in the Philippines and Midway. In 1957 he was honorably discharged. A few days later, at a friend’s get-together, he met Mary “Connie” Snider and 1½  years later, they got married on June 27, 1979.

Jerry attended Eastern Washington University, Fine Arts and two years at Spokane trade school for technical illustrating. In 1966 he got a job with Boeing as a technical illustrator and on August 2, 1966 he moved his family from Spokane, WA to Kirkland, WA. He next worked at Western Gear as a technical illustrator. In 2001 he retired from Nicholson Manufacturing, ending his 34-year career as a technical illustrator/draftsman.

Jerry was active in the community. He served as a Eucharistic minister for approximately 30 years. He was a member of the NMRA and helped build the Tabooma County Railroad and in 2005, he received the 4th Division’s Golden Spike Award.  Jerry served as the “postman” for the 4th Division’s Grab Iron for many years, delivering the addressed and folded newsletters to the USPS bulk mail delivery site.

He was an active member of the 4D HO Modular Group, with two modules, from the early days of the modular program until his health prevented his participation at the standard that he held for himself. Jerry recruited Bob Beise into the program in 1989; Bob later served as leader of the group for several years. One of Jerry’s modules was displayed at the evening reception/memorial program. His modules will go to his two eldest grandsons.

He liked man outdoor activities like hunting, fishing, hiking (including climbing to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier), collecting rocks, and spending time at the family property in the mountains.

Jerry and Connie liked to travel taking many trips to Maui, cruising the Caribbean, national parks, and Victoria BC. Jerry also took a solo trip to Yellowstone, Custer State Park, Minnesota to see Annette and family, Tennessee to see his sisters, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, and Oregon to see Ken and family.

Surviving family members include his loving wife of 53 years Connie Kelso, daughter Annette and husband Evan Hopkins of Burnsville, MN and son Ken and wife Kristi Kelso of Salem, OR. He has four grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Ken Liesse

​​Due to a mix up somewhere along the way, the ballots for the 4D elections were labeled to be postmarked by June 30th, 2012 instead of the intended May 15th. 4D will honor the June 30th postmark date and the ballot committee will count the ballots sometime in early July. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused anyone.

Didrik Voss, MMR, Manager, S&C Department

I have created a working group called NMRAModules to review and revise the specifications for the classic modules as defined in the current Standards & Recommended Practices. If you are interested, or know of a group that has implemented this version of modules, please join the group and join the discussion. We intend to create a common set of specifications throughout NMRA that is up-to-date and uses current electronic components.

I envision other module groups that do not follow the current S&RPs will have their own working groups to develop their own specifications to be adopted by NMRA. For further information, contact me at davoss@pvmtengr.com.

Ken Liesse

There will be a 4D BOD meeting on Saturday, June 2 at 1:00. Location will be the Yankee Grill in Renton, as usual. This is our annual budget meeting, so if you have any budgetary needs, please get them to Sherman Stevens before the meeting. Sherman can be reached at shermanlss@earthlink.net.

Also, any other items of business should be sent to Jean Melvin before May 30 to be included in the agenda. drbear@blarg.net.

Gerry Leone, NMRA Communications Director

At Grand Rails 2012, there will be a drawing for four cab rides from among the participants in the Little River Railroad tour. The cab rides will be in the railroad’s #110, a 4-6-2 Pacific built by Baldwin, during its trip to Quincy and back. The train’s consist will contain a WWII troop car, two converted stock cars, and three cabooses. In addition, the Little River RR’s two other locomotives will be on display for photographs. In fact, you can even climb on them!

More convention news: The Grand Rapids Model Railroad Historical Society is producing an HO-scale model of a true local railroad landmark: the Bridge Street Signal Tower. The prototype, still standing near the convention hotel, was built by the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad to stand guard over the railroad’s crossing of five streets. Only 100 of these craftsman laser-cut kits will be available at a special Grand Rails 2012 Convention price of $65. Members can see photos and get a brief history of the crossing tower at www.gr2012.org/towerkit.htm.

The 4^th Division of the Pacific Northwest Region has signed on as a co-sponsor of this year’s Narrow Gauge Convention in Seattle. The 4^th Division will be signing up members for the NMRA throughout the event.

Because the NMRA’s Online Archives has been such a rousing success, several prominent photographers and collectors have donated their collections to the NMRA. The first is noted author/photographer Louis A. Marre, who’s donated hundreds of large-format negatives of many subjects. Gregory Sommers has also donated a large collection of freight car slides, and David Lange has donated a large number of scanned images from the collection of the late Jim Morris.  Watch for these exciting additions to the NMRA Online Archives in the near future. Hopefully continued donations to The Diamond Club will cover the cost of scanning and preparing the images.

Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers, at gr2012volunteers@gmail.com for more details.

Gerry Leone, Communications Director

Fundraising has begun for the Magic of Scale Model Railroading gallery at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, CA. As your members will probably recall, this gallery will introduce the Museum’s 600,000 annual visitors to the hobby, as well as give them a sense of its history. One of the highlights of the gallery will be actual portions of the finest model railroads ever built. The Museum has donated the space rent-free to the NMRA for the purpose of promoting the hobby.  It’s estimated that the cost to build the exhibit will be approximately $750,000, and no NMRA dues or monies will be used. Instead, it will be entirely funded by donations. To date, over $100,000 has been raised, and an anonymous donor has agreed to match donations, up to $250,000. Anyone who would like to donate should send his tax-deductable donation to NMRA Headquarters at 4121 Cromwell Road., Chattanooga, TN  37421-2119, and mark it “Gallery donation.”

In the February edition of the InfoNet News, we reported the agreement of cooperation between the NMRA and the www.Hasea.com Model Railroad Association of China. This July we’ll be seeing the first fruits of that “Hands Across The Ocean” agreement as a group of teenage Chinese modelers and railfans visits California with the purpose of seeing layouts, prototype trains, and the California State Railway Museum. Several Pacific Coast Region members are helping to organize this 2-week event.

Grand Rails 2012, the upcoming NMRA national convention, has announced their commemorative convention car. Grand Rapids, Michigan, was once known as The Furniture Capital of the World, and appropriately the model was inspired by a postcard photograph of a turn-of-the-last-century furniture manufacturer’s wood-sided boxcar. This replica, produced by Accurail, comes complete with a Grand Rails 2012 logo “poster” which can be applied by the modeler. Visit www.gr2012.org to see a shot of the prototype. Grand Rails 2012 has also posted a preliminary clinic schedule for the convention at their website. Clinicians include: NMRA Worldwide Director Tony Koester, Jim Six, Jim Sacco, and clinics by the Layout Design Sig.

Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers. Just use the “Contact Us” link on the Grand Rails 2012 website at www.gr2012.org.

By Ken Liesse

​​Just a reminder that the election for NMRA National offices is currently under way. Your ballot can be found in the February issue of the NMRA Magazine. Ballots must be postmarked by April 10, 2012 for delivery to the NMRA no later than April 15th. In our neck of the woods, we are voting for President, Vice President – Administration, Vice President – Special Projects and At-Large North American Director.