There is no Eastside Get Together clinic tonight (May 19th) in Redmond. There will be an Eastside Get Together Clinic meeting in Redmond in June on the 16th. The program in June will feature Brian Pickering with an outstanding presentation on DCC and Decoder Pro.
The Renton Clinic is on for Thursday, May 26th at the Renton Highlands Library at 6:30. That program will feature a presentation on the Dynamite Train at DuPont. Click here to see additional details.
Ted Becker receiving the 2016 Golden Grab Iron Award at the 4th Division Spring Meet.
Over 75 members attended our 4th Division Annual Meeting at Tacoma Community College last Saturday, as part of the Spring Meet. Kurt Laidlaw, our Assistant Superintendent, was in charge of planning the Spring Meet event and put together a fine list of clinics and presenters. We had several first time participants and very positive comments, especially from those attending the “Hands On” clinic (building laser cut structures). Many of the presentations focused on operations for layouts and we can expect to see more layouts use prototype methods in operating sessions.
Thanks to all who shared their experience and knowledge to help us enjoy this special part of model railroading.
Operating sessions are continuing on (the late) Tom Enloe’s Pacific Northwestern Railroad and Cherry Valley Railroad (located in Duvall, Washington), although there will not be a session in May due to other commitments.
Pending a sudden change in plans, the PNW will be available for Ops Sessions through late spring/early summer of 2017. In the past, Ops Sessions were not held during the summer months as most folks were busy with outdoor activities and vacations. Since our remaining time to take advantage of the layout is limited we’re entertaining the idea of continuing Ops Sessions through the summer.
Please contact me at Steve.Haas@comcast.net to be placed on the e-mail list for upcoming operating sessions or if you have additional questions.
This month we will hold our second new clinic in the Renton area. We will meet at 6:30 pm Thursday evening on May 26 at the Renton Highlands Library, a new library just east of I-405. The address is 2801 NE 10th St, Renton, WA 98056. Click here to see the 4D Clinics page with additional information and a map.
The focus of the meeting will be getting acquainted with fellow NMRA members interested in establishing this new clinic on an ongoing basis. Another clinic will be held June 30 at the old Renton library.
The DuPont Company began construction of a blasting materials plant just north of the Nisqually Delta next to Fort Lewis/McCord in 1906. The plant was to supply dynamite and black powder to mining, logging, and construction activities from northern California to Alaska. It supplied munitions to the US Military through the Vietnam War and was closed in 1975. The 1000 acre site was subsequently acquired by the Weyerhaeuser Company.
A layout visit makes for a nice change of pace, so on April 13th the Skagit Valley and Whidbey NMRA Clinic met at the Anacortes home of long-time member Tom Hawkins, for a close-up look at his HO-scale Port Thomas & Southern. Since only a few could view the layout at the same time, to keep others busy, and to discourage excessive consumption of the treats supplied every month by Susan and Phil Gonzales (thanks guys!), clinic members were invited to bring in their track plans — whatever the stage of construction, from dream to done. What a surprise! Of the 23 attendees, there were about as many track plans! Your clinic Grab Iron reporter for one had no idea there were as many layouts abuilding in our area. A lot of interaction and constructive suggestions occurred during the evening.
Tom’s layout, though, was the star attraction. The PT&S features a walk-in track plan in a 10 x 20 foot room. Tom’s plan won 3rd place in Model Railroader’s 2012 Track Plan Contest, and was published in the October 2012 issue of MR, pp 64-66.
Fig 1 – Port Thomas
Tom’s railroad was inspired by the prototype Port Townsend & Southern, envisioned by its builders to connect the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula to Portland, OR. Like many such dreams, it fell far short, only reaching the town of Quilcene 27 miles away.
Kevin Klettke will present “Fleet Weathering” which those of us who attended PDX 2015 recall how well received his Clinic was. Kevin is going to emphasize how to “efficiently” weather large fleets of rolling stock. If you get a chance before the Clinic, visit Kevin’s website.
The next Westside Clinic is Tuesday May 10, 2016.
If you are visiting for the first time our clinics are held at the United Way of Kitsap Building in downtown Bremerton (647 4th Street) at 7 pm. Additional details (including a map and contact info) are on the Clinics Page.
I apologize for not having anything planned, but my mind has been elsewhere.
For those who haven’t heard, we unexpectedly lost a member of our group last week. Paul R Neumann passed away in his sleep. I have been working with his family to figure out what they are going to do with his model trains and train photographs.
Therefore I’m not sure what we will be doing yet. Any Ideas? As always refreshments will be provided.
Please contact me if you have any related question at whopay@tscnet.com or 360-621-5041.
Our 4th Division Spring Meet is this Saturday, May 14th. This is a full day of clinics and a chance to meet other model railroaders from our area. It is also our Annual Meeting where you can discuss with your leaders the major directions the 4th Division will take over the next two years.
Your Division Superintendent gets to hand out a few awards to some very deserving individuals at the lunch break. There is a fine schedule of clinics presented by many of our best model builders. There is a special “Hands On” clinic on building laser cut kits. This is a limited space event and you must pre-register for this extra fare session. Click here to see the full clinic schedule.
While it may be too late to guarantee lunch, you can still register online and either pay online (through PayPal) or at the door. Click here for the main registration page (the “Hands On” registration is on the Clinics page).
Welcome, new 4th Division (PNR) NMRA members (or former members recently renewed)! An e-mail notification is sent out to all Grab Iron subscribers every time a new Grab Iron post is made (or on a regular basis), so this may be one of the first messages you see from our Division. Our 4D web site has clinic info, modular group info, an events calendar, some excellent model train photos, and many pages of other related info as well as all of our Grab Iron posts – click here to navigate to the front page.
As many of you have noticed, there have been problems with Grab Iron post e-mail notifications for at least three weeks. We have been troubleshooting and understanding more of the inner workings of WordPress (and PHP e-mail), e-mail servers, spam blacklists, and SQL tables with plugins. (You can safely ignore the technical words I just wrote – if you’re interested in the details send me e-mail at the address at the end of this message).
We have switched to using the Constant Contact e-mail service that the PNR (Pacific Northwest Region of the NMRA) is using to send out regular (at least monthly) newsletters (typically written by Jack Hamilton). For now Grab Iron post notifications will be sent out by me on a manual basis versus an automatic “post by post” basis (“automatic” notification will be put in place in the future).
On May 8, 2016 at 1:30 p.m., the 4D Ballot Committee (Bill Messecar, Burr Stewart and Al Lowe) met at Al’s home. We confirmed that each ballot received was from a valid 4D member in good standing, remained sealed until we took possession, and was submitted to us before the May 1 deadline.
The results of our count are:
Total Ballots 143
Invalid Ballots 0
Superintendent:
Russ Segner 139
Write-in votes 0
Board of Directors:
David Yadock 74
Scott Taylor 69
Congratulations to Russ and David and our thanks to Scott and all of our 4D members who took the time and spent the effort to exercise their voting privilege.
Respectfully submitted and attested to by:
Al Lowe
William Messecar
Burr Stewart