Category: Tacoma Clinic

Al Babinsky / Photos by Ken Liesse

MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic and wished everyone a Happy New Year. We welcomed five newcomers for a total of 54 modelers attending.

Walt Houston introduced Roger Nulton, new MMR #445. Jack Hamilton announced that the Columbia Model Railroad Club wanted to host the National Convention but did not have enough members to qualify and ask for volunteers to sign a petition so that they would have enough members for the qualification.

Jim Sabol announced that the National Railroad Historical Society would have a convention in this area in June. Learn more about their activities at cascaderails2011.com

Bill from Tacoma Trains presented What’s New at the Hobby Shop, which included many new and some not so new items. Under the new items was a Kato American Freedom Train, RPO car, Milwaukee Road RS3 and a number of boxcars.

The Bring and Brag (Model of the Month) had a number of entries: crates and boxes for the inside of a freight house; a kit-bashed Rico Station with some inside detail; a Milwaukee Road Little Joe with sound and operating pantographs; scratchbuilt end-of-track bumpers; a work train built from Ambroid and Tichi kits; a scratchbuilt brass Milwaukee Road M3 2-6-6-2, and some car loads made from natural material. The Model of the Month winner was Jim Sabol’s brass locomotive.

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This month’s clinic was given by Charles Jackson of H&J Trains on how to make trees using his tree machine kit. The tree machine uses a precut length of soft wire and precut lengths of rope fibers. An electric drill on an adapter is used to twist the wire while the other end is held by Visegrips. Up to three trees can be made from a pair of wires. They look like bottlebrush trees and can be made into pines or other needle trees. He had catalogs available with a variety of items including various leaf trees, metal tree armatures, and even ferns in various sizes. Several local hobby shops carry some of his items. For more info, go to hjtrainstore.com

Next month’s clinic will be February 10^th at our usual place: the Pierce County Library Admin. Bldg., corner of 112^th St. and Waller Road at 7:30 PM. Hope to see you all there and bring a friend or newcomer.

Please note: the March 10^th clinic will be at the Parkland-Spanaway Branch, on 138^th Street at Pacific Avenue in Parkland, near Brookdale Lumber.

Al Babinsky

MMR Gene Swanson opened the “Dirty Santa” clinic by welcoming all attendees including several newcomers. The normal proceedings were dispensed with in order to eat prior to the “Dirty Santa” segment.

What’s new at Hobby shop presented by Tacoma Trains included a Bachmann Spectrum ON30 3 Truck Climax with sound, Christmas car from Lionel, a flat car with a tank load from Copperplate Gothic Light, and an Athearn passenger car.

In the Bring and Brag segment John Miller had a couple of unusual loads in gondolas, one was ground rubber used on athletic field track and the other was the fake turf used on the fields. Someone suggested that if properly arranged could be used to clean tunnels and cobwebs. Gene brought a number of cars that had removable loads. Patrick had a log load made from shishkabob sticks, looked very good. Dave brought a log cabin and Walt maintenance of way consist. The winner of the Bring and Brag was Gene with his removable load consist headed by a class C 3 truck Climax.

During the break food and cake was served, as always great sandwiches, salads and of course the cake and ice-cream. As always an excellent spread which was enjoyed by all.

After the break MMR Gene put his Santa hat on and we proceeded with drawing the names. It looked for a while that Dirty Santa was not going to show up but as a freight house kit was unwrapped it was snatched up. From that point on many things traded places and towards the end a number of tools changed hands a few times. Fun was had by all and the evening concluded with the clinic crew singing “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all”.

The next clinic in the New Year will be at our usual place in the Pierce County Public Library Admin. Bldg. corner of 112^th Street and Waller Rd. at 7:30 PM. The clinic for the evening will be by Charles Jackson on Trees and more. Hope to see you there and bring a friend, fellow modeler and have fun.

Al Babinsky

MMR Gene Swanson opened the meeting at our Veterans Day location at the All Nations Church in Parkland with a moment of silence for the fallen Veterans. He then asked for all that had served in the various branches of the Armed Forces to stand up and be recognized. We had a total of 37 attendees two of which were newcomers; Jeff Kuhns who models HO BNSF and UP present era and Paul Nolten who models the Monon RR, Roger is also a newly minted MMR. Mike Shaw presented the Video Library and said he would have the library available for the next couple of month.

What’s new at the hobby shop was presented by Tacoma Trains which included a new release from Athearn of a Genesis SD-70, PGE wide vision caboose and tank car, a Bowser Baldwin VO-1000 switcher, Accurail NP gondola, Woodland Scenics ready built Megawatts Transformer power station building and N Scale Station buildings, BLMA equipment shed and metal wheel sets. Kato N scale SD-45, Portland Car & Foundry Everett & Monte Christo box car.

In the Model of the month Jim Murry presented two Ambroid Caboose Kits built by his father one of them was rebuild by Jim. Dave Faucett with a Builders in Scale bait shop, one of three buildings in that kit. Paul DeMuth with a HO Grain Elevator partly scratch build and kit bashed. It was built in various locations during his AF tours mostly in Italy with materials from local shops.

The winner was Paul DeMuth with his grain elevator. Photos of the models can be seen in the digital Grab Iron submitted by one of the attendees.

The clinic for this month was a Power Point presentation on the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg Germany by Al Babinsky. Al visited the largest model rail road in the world while on his trip to Germany. At the present time the rail road covers a 10,000 square foot area with a little over 7 miles of track. 830 trains operated on the rail road along with several thousand cars, trucks and a couple of ships which operate on real water. The operation is handled by 40 computers and is completely automatic watched by 3 operators.

Next month clinic is Gene Swanson “Dirty Santa” along with a feast, please bring a wrapped gift up to $ 15.00 and mark it as to what scale. The clinic will be at our usual place at the Pierce County Library Office Bldg at the corner of Waller Rd and 112^th Street at 7:30 PM, hope to see you there.

By Al Babinsky, Photos by Al Babinsky

MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic by welcoming all. There were no newcomers present under the 46 attendees. Walt Houston reported that the Convention in Lynnwood was a great success and a number of our clinic attendees received awards and ribbons for their efforts.

Walt Houston was the recipient of the Golden Grab Iron Award and Ed Liesse and his wife gathered the Couple of the Year award.

Dave Faucett who won a few awards spoke briefly about why to be a member of the NMRA and what you get out of it. He met a number of people that were involved in the many different aspects of the Hobby and would otherwise not have known.

George Bourcier from Tacoma Trains presented “What’s new at the Hobby shop” which included new books, decals, hoppers, tank cars, and motive power. He also had several boxes of rolling stock from an Estate sale, they will be available in his store for any body to look at and purchase. Herb Buhl presented the Bring and Brag (Model of the month) which included several Diesel locomotives a boxcar, an engine facility, a G scale Ozark Miniatures logging disconnect, and a Builders in Scale water front structures building housing a law office and several businesses on the ground floor with rooms to rent on the upper floors. Dave Faucett won the model of the month with his Builders in Scale structure.

The clinic for the month was presented by Dale Kraus and was called Update on DCC. Dale demonstrated on how to set up locomotives with sound so that the engine would start and spool up prior to the locomotive moving. This was done by setting CV2 and CV3 with a high number and then using the consecutive thirds principle to get the correct setting. His next demonstration was on how to install a decoder in an older style Athearn. He cautioned that prior to closing up place the locomotive on a programming track to insure that there are no shorts or other problems and always use a programming track to check out your locomotives prior to use and changing the address.

Next month clinic will be at a different location due to the fact that November 11^th is Veterans Day and the Library building is closed. The location for next month clinic is at the “Church for All Nations” at 111 112^th Street at 7:30 PM. Park near the main entrance and the clinic is on the 2^nd floor.

The clinic for next month is a Power Point presentation by Al Babinsky on the Miniature Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany, a fascinating display of automation and operation. Hope to see you there and bring friends and enjoy a great evening.

By Al Babinsky

Just a reminder that this month’s Tacoma Clinic will be on Thursday October 14 at 7:30 PM at our usual place in the Pierce County Library Office Bldg. on the corner of Waller Road and 112th Street. Hope to see you there.

By Al Babinsky

There is no report for the September clinic since I was in Germany at that time and Gene forgot to give me the information. I will however write a small report with some photos from my visit to the Miniature Wunderland in Hamburg.

I have to let everyone know that the November 11^th clinic will be at the Church for All Nations at 111 112^th Street E. at the usual time of 7:30PM. The Pierce Couny Library Admin. Bldg. is closed due to Veterans Day. The church is on the same street as our normal location just past Pacific Ave. towards Tacoma. If you’re driving on Hwy 512 take the Pacific Ave exit from either direction and go to 112^th Street E. which is south of Hwy 512 towards Parkland.

Al Babinsky / photos by Al Babinsky

MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic with 45 attendees including several newcomers and a couple of youngsters. Dale Kraus reminded everyone that his hobby store is closing on June 15^th and items are selling fast. If you see something, you better buy it, as it may be gone when you come back. Since the May Grab Iron was not out yet, there were no announcements to be made.

“What’s New at the Hobby Shop” was presented by Bill from Tacoma Trains and included a number of buildings, building kits, and prefab kits from Lionel and Woodland Scenics, rolling stock, motive power, and people to populate your layout.

In the “Bring and Brag” (model of the month) category, we had a number of items including a Bantam hydrocal and laser-cut wood kit; an N scale freight train; a building kit modified into a hunters’ cabin; a couple of gondolas weathered with rust by filling the gondola with water and adding rusty scraps of iron and some salt; a depressed-center flatcar with a ship’s propeller load (the propeller being an R/C boat propeller); and our winner: a dock scene diorama.

After the break, MMR Max Maginness and Jim Sabol presented their clinic on yard throat design involving a diode matrix to operate the switch machines. The entrance to the yard has two tracks which need to access all yard tracks. This is done with a double slip switch which can route the trains coming in on either track to any part of the yard. You can have two trains, one on each track, enter the yard together and go to their respective sides, or they can cross over and go to the opposite side of the yard.

After the clinic, Herb Buhl announced the “Model of the Month” winner was Tony Bentley’s dock-side diorama consisting of a scratchbuilt T-shaped dock with code 55 rail track. Tied up to the dock is a tugboat and several fishing boats.

The two attending youngsters won our door prize drawings. It is always nice to see newcomers win, especially young persons.

Our last clinic prior to the summer break will be June 10^th, 7:30 PM at our usual location in the Pierce County Library Admin. Bldg. at the corner of 112^th Street and Waller Road. I hope to see you there.

Here are all the entries in this month’s MotM: