There will be a 4D BOD meeting on Saturday, June 2 at 1:00. Location will be the Yankee Grill in Renton, as usual. This is our annual budget meeting, so if you have any budgetary needs, please get them to Sherman Stevens before the meeting. Sherman can be reached at shermanlss@earthlink.net.
Also, any other items of business should be sent to Jean Melvin before May 30 to be included in the agenda. drbear@blarg.net.
You’ve heard us talk about it. Now it’s happening! Eastside Get-Together members should not miss our Thursday, May 17, monthly meeting. Dave Hikel, our recent clinician, has generously obtained a one-time permission for us to visit the North West Trunk Lines, a 3,200 square foot, O and On30 scale, layout owned by Peter and Laurie Hambling. This unique layout was recently featured in the Seattle Times.
It includes real world scenes from the western U.S. and Canada. Dave took over John Armstrong’s design for construction and enhancement. He drove over 16,000 miles to photograph and collect soil and rock samples of the areas modeled. Backdrops are hand-painted from his photographs. Dave created a control program based on an MTH Digital Command System integrated with a computer running RR & Co layout control software allowing the use of Apple iPads as local control panels during operating sessions. The scenery is exceptional. There’s so much more for you to see, too.
If you want to visit this unique layout, you must:
1. Parking at the Medina Elementary School, 8001 NE 8th St, Medina. NO exceptions. There is no parking available near the Hambling residence.
2. Ride the free van from the school parking lot to the layout.
3. The van will run round trips from 7:00 pm continuously until 10:00 pm. Dave will do a formal introduction and speak about computer control beginning at 7:30 pm. No admittance after 9:45.
The layout is only accessible down an outside stairway into the basement.
See you there!
At Grand Rails 2012, there will be a drawing for four cab rides from among the participants in the Little River Railroad tour. The cab rides will be in the railroad’s #110, a 4-6-2 Pacific built by Baldwin, during its trip to Quincy and back. The train’s consist will contain a WWII troop car, two converted stock cars, and three cabooses. In addition, the Little River RR’s two other locomotives will be on display for photographs. In fact, you can even climb on them!
More convention news: The Grand Rapids Model Railroad Historical Society is producing an HO-scale model of a true local railroad landmark: the Bridge Street Signal Tower. The prototype, still standing near the convention hotel, was built by the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad to stand guard over the railroad’s crossing of five streets. Only 100 of these craftsman laser-cut kits will be available at a special Grand Rails 2012 Convention price of $65. Members can see photos and get a brief history of the crossing tower at www.gr2012.org/towerkit.htm.
The 4th Division of the Pacific Northwest Region has signed on as a co-sponsor of this year’s Narrow Gauge Convention in Seattle. The 4th Division will be signing up members for the NMRA throughout the event.
Because the NMRA’s Online Archives has been such a rousing success, several prominent photographers and collectors have donated their collections to the NMRA. The first is noted author/photographer Louis A. Marre, who’s donated hundreds of large-format negatives of many subjects. Gregory Sommers has also donated a large collection of freight car slides, and David Lange has donated a large number of scanned images from the collection of the late Jim Morris. Watch for these exciting additions to the NMRA Online Archives in the near future. Hopefully continued donations to The Diamond Club will cover the cost of scanning and preparing the images.
Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers, at gr2012volunteers@gmail.com for more details.
MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic on time as always with 46 modelers present, there were no newcomers except one old newcomer, Clint Cannon who had not been to a clinic since we moved from TCC. Several announcements were made one of which pertains to next month clinic.
Please note: Next month’s clinic will be on the first Thursday, June 7th at the Parkland/Spanaway library at Pacific Ave and 138th St.
The Tacoma clinic layout tour is scheduled for the 12th of May, and the TNW Swap meet and open house is on May 19 -20. The 4D spring meet is cancelled and will be rescheduled prior to the Narrow Gage convention.
What’s new at the Hobby Shop presented by Bill Deutscher from Tacoma Trains included items such as T-shirts with various rail road logos, Budd 10-6 sleepers in Amtrak IV scheme, El Capitan cars, Kato double stack runner pack, Microtrains 4 pack, each car for a different rail road, N scale cars from several manufactures, tank cars from Atlas in N and HO scale, and Atlas Trainman freight
cars.
Model of the month featured a set of buildings for background silhouette that were cut in half and slightly kit bashed to form a city block. A kit bashed ON30 Forney that had a swivel tender, an entry from German manufacturer Brekina a fifth wheel rail bus for the Sylter SVG in HO scale, and a purple freight car used for wine transport along with a scratch built passenger car and gondola. The winner of the model of the month was Scott Groff with his kit bashed Forney.
This month clinic was presented by Joe Welsh and was titled “The Art of the Streamliner”. The clinic started with how the Streamliner came about and what went into the various designs of the cars and motive power. The rail roads hired industrial designers like Loewy, Dreyfuss, and Kuhler to design their cars and locomotives. Loewy designed the GG-1 and PRR cars, Henry Dreyfuss designed the 20th Century Limited along with its Hudson Locomotive, and Otto Kuhler designed for the Milwaukee Road. His design included the FM diesels and the Hiawatha consists. Brooks Stevens designed the California Zephyr 5 dome car train which was to be run in the day time to allow passengers to see the spectacular scenery.
Again next month clinic will be on June 7th at the Library at 138th St. and Pacific Ave. at our usual time at 7:30 PM. Hope to see you there, this will be our last clinic until September.
Model of the Month Winner
You may have heard about the 4D’s Spring Meet, originally scheduled for June 2-3 which, due to unforeseen circumstances, has been rescheduled for a less-busy time of year, August 18-19, 2012. Once an annual occurrence in the 4th Division, the Board of Directors hopes it will become so once again.
We will meet August 18th at the Hilton Garden Inn, in Issaquah for a Saturday filled with the best clinics presented all over the 4th Division during the past year. This will enable all 4D members to see what only some local clinic attendees have seen. We plan to have three clinics offered simultaneously. Coffee, snacks, and soft drinks will be served. Lunch is on your own. (There is a restaurant at the Hilton and dozens more restaurants in Issaquah.) Saturday will end with a short General Membership meeting, concluding before 5:30 PM.
Sunday, August 19th will feature 4D layout open houses. Travel will be on your own, but maps, identification badges, and schedules will only be distributed at Saturday morning’s registration. The public is not invited so you will have plenty of time to enjoy the layouts to the fullest.
Registration is limited to the first 120 members to email 4D Treasurer Sherman Stevens. The cost is a mere $20, payable at the door.
Catch up on all the great clinics you missed over the past year, see some great layouts, and enjoy the camaraderie of the World’s Greatest Hobby. See you August 18th!
John White recently handed over the reins as Clinic Chair of the Skagit Valley and Whidbey Clinic, an enthusiastic group of modelers and rail enthusiasts which meets monthly in Oak Harbor. John served as SV&W Chair for twelve continuous years, if not a record certainly an admirable span of leadership. Over these dozen years, our clinic gatherings have shown considerable growth not only in numbers but geographical span of attendees as well.
John White opens a meeting of the Skagit Valley and Whidbey Clinic
During John’s chairmanship, he organized over 100 clinics embracing a broad range of model railroading skills and techniques; railroad history and prototype railroading; “make and take” sessions; and of course layout visits. Swap table and “show and tell” nights alternate months during the year, and in recent years a popular annual modeling contest has been included. John and his wife, Valerie, have also encouraged additional group socializing by hosting a “Wassail” party each December in their Anacortes home, during which John’s fine On30 layout is fired up for operation, too.
During John’s watch, clinic attendance has steadily increased, requiring three ever-larger venues over the past eight years as we outgrew each room. Currently the SV&W Clinic meets in the Summer Hill Retirement Facility in Oak Harbor. From the 2004/5 to the current 2011/12 season, during which John kept attendance statistics, average attendance nearly doubled from 17 to 30, with a peak (reached just this March) of 37. We may soon need a new meeting room! Clinic attendees come from a relatively wide area: all of Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands; Mt. Vernon and Sedro-Woolley to the east; and Bellingham to the north. The “Skagit Valley and Whidbey” name was the shortest we could devise, but certainly isn’t inclusive. Guest clinic presenters have come from all parts of the Puget Sound region.
For those of whom have not heard the story (John was the Guest Speaker at the September 2010 PNR Convention Banquet), John, now retired, was responsible for introduction of concrete ties into use by North American railroads. He was a principal in establishing three plants in the U.S. for manufacture of these ties.
John White working the town of Concrete on his On30 Skagit Valley Eastern
John is also an outstanding modeler. Beginning first in OO-scale with British prototypes, he shifted his focus to the Great Northern in HO-scale. Ultimately he abandoned both for On30. John’s present layout, the Skagit Valley Eastern (SVE), fills most of a 14ft. x 51ft. room. The SVE, set in the late 1920’s, is loosely based on the Skagit River Railroad built to haul men, material, food, equipment and a lot of cement to various dam projects on the Upper Skagit River.
The SV&W Clinic meets ten times a year on the second Wednesday of each month, September through June. Two volunteers have stepped up to continue John’s work: Rich Blake as the new Clinic Chair; and Susan Gonzales as Program Organizer. Follow the SV&W Clinic’s activities by reading the Grab Iron reports by our NMRA Liaison and Reporter, Gordon Garnhart.
Please come join us this Thursday (May 3) when our clinic topic will be railroading in Cuba. Last month Bobj returned from a trip to the island. As he was one of the guides on a railroad tour, he was privy to all sorts of good information which he will share with us.
Also the folks from the upcoming National Narrow Gauge Convention will be stopping by to make a presentation. This convention is being held September 12-15 in Bellevue. If you have never been to a National Narrow Gauge event, you are in for a treat. There is really some fantastic modeling being displayed and the techniques are applicable most anywhere. Think about it – there is no such thing as a narrow gauge tree.
Last month’s clinic covered scratch building turnouts with Stu R. And when we say scratch, we mean scratch. Stu goes so far as cutting his own wood ties. He also has made his own set of angle gauges for the turnout sizes he needs. Stu says he worked out the geometry by studying prototype books on track laying and using CADRail to lay out templates.
Stu started with a primer on hand laying track. His technique is pretty conventional. First he lays the ties and makes sure they are level. He coats the bottom of the rail with contact cement and clamps it down (or uses heavy weights) until it dries. After that he uses a few spikes to make sure everything stays put. He does one rail at a time. Stu has several handmade jigs used for getting tie spacing correct in different situations, like regular track, bridge decks, and under turnouts.
Unfortunately my notes are not detailed enough to explain exactly how Stu builds the turnouts. I do recall that when he does something with a flangeway, he fills the whole assembly with solder. Then he uses a section of hacksaw blade to “cut” the flangeway in the solder. This appears easier than techniques I have seen that try keep that area clear throughout construction. And it seems to result in a very robust assembly.
Stu's Tools (at least some of them)
Rob J brought an OmNi-Rail mockup, which is a new N gauge modular standard. He talked a little about the standard and why some folks think it is needed. The mockup was available for further scrutiny during show and tell.
OmNi-Rail Module Mockup
Bobj had a few mementos from Cuba on display. Of course we will learn more about them at May’s meeting. John B brought some of his hand built turnouts (in HO). He had a fascinating way of holding the points in gauge using a styrene throwbar with a notched spreader glued on top. He said he first learned about this method at a clinic some years ago.
From Bobj's Cuba Trip
In talking to John and Stu I learned you cannot always expect a perfect turnout. From time to time one of your efforts just will not function properly and you should expect this will occur. The best solution is to just build another one.
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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).
Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. In June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts about 7:30.
Remember the next meeting is May 3.
Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.
MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic on time as always to a great group of modelers including two newcomers. Several announcements were made about upcoming conventions; the 4D Spring met will be in Issaquah, June 3-4. A reminder of the PCR PNR combined convention in Medford, OR. Walt Huston announced that the Tacoma Clinic layout would be in May. The TNW will hold their annual show on May 19-20. The Kitsap live steamers started operating on Saturday the 14th of April.
What’s new at the hobby shop was presented by Bill Deutscher from Tacoma Trains with a variety of items from Woodland Scenics, Atlas, Microtrains, and DPM in scales from Z to O.
Doug and Leo sent their cans around for the coffee fund and our food drive. Leo reported that at this point we have collected 561.00 Dollars for the food drive.
Model of the Month Winner
The Model of the Month contest had a number of nice models, a F-7 AB unit with the B unit powered by drive shaft from the A unit, An Athearn Genesis caboose and a 50’ boxcar heavy weathering and graffiti decals, a diorama with a Cornerstone building “Granma B café”, a TNW box car body with TNW logo, German locomotive with wine vat cars of various designs, a water tank from the Wenatchee Appleyard, and trestle from Micro Engineering that was modified into a curved trestle. The Model of the Month winner was the Watertank.
The clinic for this month was given by Jim Sabol and was titled freight yard design. Jim started out with a section of track that had a siding on a board about four feet long which he called a model rail road layout. After explaining his theory he expanded on paper the design into a very complex design of a freight yard. A great clinic on yard design for operations.
Next month’s clinic will be May 10 at our usual location in the Pierce County Library Admin. Bldg. the corner of 112th Street and Waller Rd.
Fundraising has begun for the Magic of Scale Model Railroading gallery at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, CA. As your members will probably recall, this gallery will introduce the Museum’s 600,000 annual visitors to the hobby, as well as give them a sense of its history. One of the highlights of the gallery will be actual portions of the finest model railroads ever built. The Museum has donated the space rent-free to the NMRA for the purpose of promoting the hobby. It’s estimated that the cost to build the exhibit will be approximately $750,000, and no NMRA dues or monies will be used. Instead, it will be entirely funded by donations. To date, over $100,000 has been raised, and an anonymous donor has agreed to match donations, up to $250,000. Anyone who would like to donate should send his tax-deductable donation to NMRA Headquarters at 4121 Cromwell Road., Chattanooga, TN 37421-2119, and mark it “Gallery donation.”
In the February edition of the InfoNet News, we reported the agreement of cooperation between the NMRA and the www.Hasea.com Model Railroad Association of China. This July we’ll be seeing the first fruits of that “Hands Across The Ocean” agreement as a group of teenage Chinese modelers and railfans visits California with the purpose of seeing layouts, prototype trains, and the California State Railway Museum. Several Pacific Coast Region members are helping to organize this 2-week event.
Grand Rails 2012, the upcoming NMRA national convention, has announced their commemorative convention car. Grand Rapids, Michigan, was once known as The Furniture Capital of the World, and appropriately the model was inspired by a postcard photograph of a turn-of-the-last-century furniture manufacturer’s wood-sided boxcar. This replica, produced by Accurail, comes complete with a Grand Rails 2012 logo “poster” which can be applied by the modeler. Visit www.gr2012.org to see a shot of the prototype. Grand Rails 2012 has also posted a preliminary clinic schedule for the convention at their website. Clinicians include: NMRA Worldwide Director Tony Koester, Jim Six, Jim Sacco, and clinics by the Layout Design Sig.
Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers. Just use the “Contact Us” link on the Grand Rails 2012 website at www.gr2012.org.
There were 28 people gathered in the conference room at the Summer Hill Retirement Facility on Wednesday, April 11th for a very interesting and enjoyable meeting. The session was opened, for the first time, by Rich Blake, who presented John White with a beautifully decorated sheet cake, commemorating his 12 years of very capable leadership.
A feature of the evening was the judging, by Didrik Voss, of the entrants in the Rolling Stock Competition. This contest, shepherded by Jack Tingstad, which was first announced last September, attracted enthusiastic participation, and some very impressive entries. In the category of Craftsman Kit, first prize went to Tom Hawkins, and second prize was won by Doug Greenfield. In the category of Kit or Kit Bashed, Gordon Jones took first prize, with Susan Gonzales and Jim Tartas taking second and third respectively. The lead prize in Ready to Run was won by Rich Blake, with Thurlow Powell taking second.
In the Scratchbuilt category, Steve Jaffray’s entry took first prize and Rich Blake won second. The People’s Choice Award went to Steve Jaffray. And finally, the prize for best entry in the Built Prior to 2011 category went to Terry Kandzor. And the Honorable Mention Award was won by Al Frasch. All winners received a certificate and a small monetary award.
A scene from Di Voss' layout.
Didrik Voss also entertained the group with a very interesting and informative slide presentation entitled, “The Reality and the Model of the Everett & Monte Cristo Railway.” Di discussed his prototype modeling of the Everett & Monte Cristo Railway. The Everett & Monte Cristo Railway in Di’s basement is a prototype of a short line constructed in 1893 from the City of Everett 55 miles east to Monte Cristo for the purpose of removing gold from the Cascade Mountains. This short line was underwritten by John D. Rockefeller. It was standard gauge and connected to the Northern Pacific in Hartford, Washington. The line also provided a route to transport the large trees in the Cascade Mountains for the construction of buildings and other structures along the west coast. Most of the buildings on the layout are scratchbuilt or extensively kitbashed — from the 10-hammer stamp mill in Monte Cristo to the smelter in Everett.
Didrik is a Master Model Railroader and is currently serving as the Manager, Standards & Conformance Dept. for the NMRA. In the past he has been a Director and also Editor of the Grab Iron in the 4th Division. He lives in Mill Creek, with his wife Mary Kay. His layout has been featured in the Gazette (2001) and Model Railroad Craftsman (June 2004).
The next meeting, at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, May 9th, will feature Barry Anderson whose topic will be “How to Drive a Steam Engine.” We hope to see you there.