Skip to main content

Grab Iron Posts

Seattle-North Looks at Sound on January 7, 2016

Written by Jeff Moorman
Leave a Comment

By Jeff Moorman

Next Clinic:

The first clinic of the calendar year is this Thursday, January 7. The general topic will be demonstrating what can be done with DCC sound decoders. This will include sound equipment you can install in steam locomotives and some freight cars.

Prior Clinic:

We started by continuing the series of mini-talks on fallen flags. This time it was the Erie Railroad. Here are a couple of interesting facts:

  • Before the country settled on “standard gauge” there were all sorts of gauges in use. For example, the Erie was originally constructed as 6-foot gauge.
  • An Erie financier was once swindled out of $1,000,000 of Erie stock by a British con man who fled to Canada. At one point this led to a state governor wanting to call up his militia to invade our northern neighbor.

Read More

Seattle-North Clinic

A Narrower View – The Branch Line

Written by Cliff Green
Leave a Comment

Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the eleventh article of a series on narrow gauge by Syd Schofield. The previous article is available by clicking here, or by filtering with the category “Narrow Gauge”. Syd welcomes discussions and feedback, which can be made by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of the post.

As the common carrier railroads grew to service larger and wider areas than the linear path from A (departure) to B (destination), the construction of a branch line followed, at least when the market supported and the terrain allowed. Railroads often pursued interesting routes to get to the destination in the shortest distance, frequently in a path unsuitable to the standard gauge requirements. In the case of access to the mines near Westcliffe and Silver Cliff in the Wet Mountain Valley, the surveyors chose the Grape Creek Canyon. This area is in south central Colorado from the Royal Gorge route of the Denver & Rio Grande, then a dual gauge line. In the challenging accomplishments building the line along the Arkansas River through the Gorge (running gun battles with rival railroad construction crews notwithstanding), it probably didn’t seem too difficult a task for the veteran builders.

Read More

Articles, Narrow Gauge

Skagit Valley and Whidbey Island Clinic Dec 2015 Report, Planning Layout Future

Written by Cliff Green
Leave a Comment

Rich Thom / Photos by Dick Haines

Twenty-seven regulars gathered at the Summerhill Residence in Oak Harbor for the December meeting of the Skagit Valley & Whidbey NMRA Clinic. Four from the Mt. Vernon NMRA clinic group made the long journey from the mainland, and Barry Anderson braved the sparse wintertime ferry service to come over from Port Townsend. Clinic Chair Rich Blake welcomed two guests this evening, Mike Garcia, Coupeville and Mike Piccone, Oak Harbor.

In opening remarks Rich observed that Performance R/C Hobbies, in Burlington, had closed its doors in November after over three decades of serving R/C hobbyists and model railroaders. We extend sincere thanks to owner Susan (Suzie) Thornton for maintaining a stock of basic model railroad supplies over the years. Rich reminded everyone to patronize the remaining hobby shops in the Seattle-Tacoma area to help keep them financially viable. Upcoming events were reviewed, which can be found on the PNR website or the 4D events page. Susan Gonzales announced that the mystery “make and take” planned for the January meeting was no longer a mystery: we will be building Rock Details for Structures. If you are eyesight-challenged, Susan warned, bring a magnifier.

Read More

Skagit Valley and Whidbey Island Clinic

Eastside Get Together this Thursday, Dec 17

Written by Cliff Green
Leave a Comment

JJ Johnston

Dirty Santa Party! Celebrate with us this Thursday, the 17th at 7:30 and get the gift of a lifetime. That’s right. You need to bring a wrapped gift and write the scale on the outside. That’s it. And when it comes to your turn, you can take somebody’s gift or pick a new one. There are always great choices.

Church Fund. You all have been extremely generous with your donations to the Church for a member(s) in financial need who we will select from recommendations offered by the Church. If you did not get a chance to donate last month, you still have time to give at our meeting. Please be generous as the Church has been very good to us during the year providing us with free coffee and setting up the room and letting us use their facility rent free. Thanks to many of you who have already participated.

Next month’s clinic will be in Redmond. Further details will be provided in a future Grab Iron post.

For Eastside Get Together location and other information, see the 4D Clinics page.

Eastside Get-Together (Redmond) Clinic

An Intro to Free-mo Part 2 – Building a Platform for Track and Scenery

Written by Cliff Green
1 Comment

by Alan Ashton and Frank Wilhelm with contributions by Jerry Barsness and Mike Tietz

Editors note: Welcome to the second article on Free-mo by Alan Ashton. The previous article is available by clicking here, or by filtering with the category “Free-mo”. Alan welcomes discussions and feedback by comments at the bottom of the post or by e-mailing him at inwafreemo@gmail.com. If you’re interested in helping promote Free-mo in the 4th Division (e.g. event notification or writing articles) please contact me at gi_editor@4dpnr.com.

The second installment (in PDF format) of our series on Free-mo is available to read or download by clicking here. In this article we discuss some of the details related to construction of a module. Later, we will cover leg options, electrical connections, command and control, and track planning.

I’ve also created a “module cost estimator” spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) to help you determine what components you will need to build a module. In order to get some data into the worksheet, we are “building” a four foot, two main line module (26″ endplates). The model doesn’t take track or scenery into account but you can add items if you wish.

Read More

Articles, Free-mo