JJ Johnston

JJ Johnston welcomed 40+ attendees to the first Eastside Get-Together for 2013. He introduced several visitors as well as his usual “dignitaries” (as defined by JJ!).

Frank Dekker reminded everyone of the Pacific Science Center show coming up on Martin Luther King weekend. More volunteers would still be welcome. Russ Segner talked about the tentative plans for the 4D Spring Meet on May 11 with clinics and annual meeting on Saturday and layout tours on Sunday (but only for those who attend Saturday). He cautioned, however, that these plans were still in the development stage and could change. Stay tuned.

JJ reported that the donations collected in November and December were used to help several members of the church and he read responses from the recipients. The recipients were most grateful for the help provided.

The Model of the Month again had several entries. An old California Scale Models (now Alpine Models) freighthouse kit, which was modified greatly by David Yadock, took the prize.

After a short break, David Woodrell, MMR, gave a presentation he had done at the National Narrow Gauge convention inSeattlein September honoring the life of Brian Ellerby.

Brian was founder and owner of Evergreen Scale Models, the fantastic styrene we all use in our modeling. The presentation showed Brian as a young man chasing trains for photos (as we have all done) and ultimately building his own layout. We had a look at some of the early projects he worked on in building his layout for controlling his turnouts. Surprisingly, they were made out of Evergreen styrene! Quite ingenious! Most of us think of Evergreen styrene being used largely by model railroaders, but the community of users is much larger! The styrene is shipped all over the world to practically any company you can think of for all kinds of uses; modeling, project design, prototyping of new ideas, etc. David did a wonderful job giving an insight to the person Brian was and what he did for the hobby and the plastic industry. Thanks, David!

Join us on Thursday, February 21st for the next Eastside Get-Together. Watch the Digital Grab Iron for the announcement of the topic and presenter.