The results of the 2015 NMRA national election are:
A reminder that the next 4th Division Board of Directors meeting is tomorrow, Saturday the 11th, 11 am, at Mitzel’s in Kent, Washington. As always, all 4D members are invited to attend.
Welcome, new (and renewed) 4th Division NMRA members! I’ve updated the Grab Iron e-mail notification list with new members as well as members that have renewed or changed their e-mail addresses. Any time a Grab Iron blog post is created and published you will receive an e-mail notification. If you do not wish to receive these notifications, let me (Cliff, cliffg@codewrangler.net) know and I’ll be happy to remove you.
Many train related events are happening over the next couple of months. A list of events in the NMRA Pacific Northwest Region (PNR) can be found here. Events of particular 4D interest include:
There is a wealth of model railroading expertise available in this area, and a good place to encounter it is at one of the 4th Div clinics (see the 4D web site “Clinics” page for more info). I urge everyone to take advantage of it whenever possible. Most of the clinic organizers provide overviews and reports in the Grab Iron, but reading blog posts can’t compare to attending in person.
Editors note: This is the second article of a new 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.
Narrow gauge railroad track isn’t much different than the “standard” four feet eight and one half inch gauge track on a lesser, “junior varsity” short line or a somewhat neglected spur. The main consideration is the weight of the heaviest wheel set to be supported. This results in a balance of rail strength and tie (or sleeper if you’re not from around here) spacing. So a K-37 would require heavier rail and closer ties, maybe even with tie plates to further spreads the weight over a larger foot print (bearing area) on the tie than needed by an 0-4-0.
In the early days (the Civil War and on) the materials involved were wrought iron with high strength alloy steel used later on. The rail deteriorates in elastic fatigue as a beam loaded between the ties as well as surface region fatigue due to the dual flexing (also elastic) of the contact area of the wheels, wheel on rail, with the rail top. Large rail grinding machines are used today to make an “insurance cut” of the affected rail top region. As rail was replaced due to fatigue and insufficient capacity, rails were often upgraded in size and material and the locally available, minimally prepared ties were upgraded with ties milled for tie plates and spike pilot holes off-site. Notably, spikes are made with a chisel point across the grain of the tie so as to break the fibers but remain supportive in the lengthwise direction as opposed to splitting the fibers opening an unsupported gap in the lengthwise direction.
What all this leads to is a hand driven single spike on each side of the rail in every tie for the earlier years / low budget / low capacity remote business or the store-bought closely spaced ties with tie plates and four spikes per plate for more modern or high capacity / well-financed business. With a little preparation of the Peco / Micro-Engineering / Shinohara nickel silver flex track and turnouts, to name a few, with an X-Acto knife and Dremel tool plus coloring and ballasting practices, the tie can look a little neglected and more representative of the frugal / back woods / mine supply / agricultural on a short life plan railroad. The actual time spent between the two methods is reportedly similar when appropriate skills and experience levels are achieved.
In addition to the Washington common carrier narrow gauge railroads previously mentioned we include the Alaska portion of the Pacific Northwest Region Forth Division: Golovin Bay Railroad, Seward Peninsula Railroad, Tanana Valley Railroad, and the still active and very popular White Pass and Yukon Railroad. And, as in Washington, there were numerous privately owned company railroads for support of logging, mining and other enterprises.
The 4th Division’s 2015 Spring Meet – “Making Tracks” – will be held on Saturday June 6th at the Sheraton Bellevue Hotel, 100 112th Av NE, Bellevue Washington. There will be layout tours on June 7th.
Eight great clinics will be offered including (at least):
The registration is $25 for NMRA members if registered online or by mail before May 31st or $35 at the door for those not pre-registered. Lunch is included. For online registration and additional details visit http://wnrr.net/4dspringmeet/. A printable poster can be found at http://wnrr.net/4dspringmeet/SpringMeetPoster.pdf.
Please contact Russ Segner at russseg@gmail.com or 425-228-7327 for more information.
The Tacoma Northwestern Model RR Club and the NRHS Tacoma Chapter have lost their homes. We both must be out of the Freighthouse Square by May 1st. If any one knows of an old retail or warehouse space please put them in touch with me at petermcoulton@gmail.com or 206-550-4583.
Next Clinic:
Our next clinic meeting is this Thursday, April 2. We intend to show a video of the building of a local layout by Dr. Scott Campbell. It contains many recognizable scenes from around Washington State. We were originally going to show this in February, but things didn’t work out.
And, time permitting we’ll say a few more words about operating on small layouts.
The church continues its remodeling effort. I will not know what room we will be in until after this is posted. Just come in the main door and we’ll have someone show you where to go,
Prior Clinic:
Last month we talked about adding interest to “playing” with trains on a small layout (even if it is just a short shelf). It seems to work best when you try to simulate a task done by real railroads. There needs to be a purpose to your play.
Some ways of imagining little layouts as parts of bigger railroads were discussed. We ended with a few words about using chance (i.e. dice or a coin) to introduce an element of randomness to these operations.
Dennis T brought another of his N scale T-TRAK modules to show. This one had a river running through it. Two substantial bridges were needed to get the mainline tracks and a diverging branch across the water. Plus, there was a nice little park / playground down by the river for use by the area’s model residents.
Dennis also brought along a sample of a wiring buss he devised to power his module set-ups.
Dennis T power buss
Dennis T module end
Dennis T module end 2
Dennis T module overall
Dennis T module playground
For those who picked up a name tag blank at the last meeting, don’t forget to wear it and show everyone what a marvelous job of decorating you did.
Directions: We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175th and 185th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. From the parking lot go up the steps to the main entrance.
Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, usually September – June. However in June we often do something different, so there may be no “regular” meeting. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.
The next regular evening meeting is April 2 and the one after that is May 7. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.
Often a well-worded descriptive caption can turn a simple “record shot” photograph into a dynamic, interesting picture. In a still picture movement, effort, and sense of direction can be implied, creating an impression of time and purpose.
As an example, the attached picture is a rather bland shot of an electric locomotive emerging from a tunnel. With the caption, however, it becomes a much more captivating record of a train struggling to overcome a mountain grade.
With the cooling blowers for its twin 26-pole motors screaming and the ammeters in the red, SDEV electric E68 046 is using all of the available 1250Kw to drag a freight up the 2.7% grade on the western approach to Triberg in southeastern Schwabia. There it will pause to cool the hot traction motors before making the final winding assault on “Das Teufelberg.” (The Devil’s Hill.) Click on photo for full picture.
Editors note: Please welcome Syd Schofield, who will be writing posts in the Grab Iron blog on narrow gauge topics. He welcomes discussions and feedback, which can be made by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of each post.
Model trains, usually smaller than the real life things, generally fit our interests, space, time and budgets. The generally accepted, for various physical, business and political reasons, “standard” gauge (acceptance occurring from the Reconstruction period to well into the 20th century) for most US and Canadian common carriers was four feet 8 and ½ inches between wrought iron and steel rails. Smaller gauges of three feet and two feet also survived among the many other industrial, light transit and amusement purposes as did larger distances for specialized industrial purposes, however common sizes provided for economies of scale in production, operations and exchanges between railroads.
The HOn3 model size designates the “HO” (roughly the half “O” scale) of 1 to 87 parts, the “n” for narrower distance between rails than the standard gauge and the “3” is the actual full size distance in feet (a “30” or similar means 30 inches, versus feet). The general purposes of the full size railroad in this gauge was for smaller, less expensive equipment as well as the lower cost and more agile route preparation. These features made the three foot gauge attractive to any or all of rough terrain, lower capacity, lower capitol investment and short term business situations.
Washington State had at least three three foot gauge common carriers as well as many privately owned and operated by logging and mining interests. There were many three foot railroads and some even had dual gauge operations throughout the Western US, Alaska and other parts of Canada. Some were absorbed by larger standard gauge railroads while others succumbed to the truck, bus and automobile business successes or became historical amusements.
It is this period, simultaneous to the acceptance of the “standard gauge,” that many modelers choose to reproduce from “real” railroads based on historical situation or the merely technically correct for the chosen period creation of what might have been – in HOn3 (or other modeling narrow gauge scales). We would like to explore the activities of modelers in the PNR 4th Division, or anyone else with constructive intent pertinent to the three foot gauge railroads in brief and regular Grab Iron expositions. That is heavy on the “we” as pertains to anyone who would like to offer appropriate comments.
I’ve enabled comments on 4th Division Grab Iron posts (again … in the past it’s been a battle against blog spam). Besides allowing comments on general posts, we have a new Grab Iron contributor that is going to be writing posts on narrow gauge topics, and will be encouraging discussions and feedback through comments.
A name and e-mail address is required to be entered to write a comment on a Grab Iron post. The e-mail address will not be displayed to comment viewers, but the name will be. I will be asking for a real name versus an alias or handle to help keep comments spam-free and civil.
The first comment from each person requires moderation (i.e. approval) by me (or other Grab Iron admin), with subsequent comments not requiring moderation (this could change if comments start getting out of hand).
I’m looking forward to the discussions!
Discussions and Comments, Oh My!