We will get a good look at several terrific layouts seen in Phoenix at the recent Sn3 Symposium. Two are HO, one is On30 and one is Sn3. There were some very interesting track plans and some creative elements useful on any layout.
Join us to share your comments and let us all know what you are modeling.
Here is the link:
Russ Segner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Eastside Clinic – Thursday, May 16 Time: May 16, 2024 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Congratulations to Mike Stepner and Ed Ives and a thank you to the 20% of our membership who voted. We also will increase the board membership from 3 to 5.
Candidate: Superintendent Mike Stepner: 42 votes 56.00% Mike Slease: 33 votes 44.00% Mike Stepner wins. Votes tallied: 75 Abstentions: 7
Candidate: Director Ed Ives: 79 votes 98.75% Brian Ferris: 1 vote 1.25% Ed Ives wins. Votes tallied: 80 Abstentions: 2
Option: Shall we increase the Board of Directors from 3 to 5 members? Yes: 64 votes 84.21% No: 12 votes 15.79% Yes wins. Votes tallied: 76 Abstentions: 6
Join us next Saturday, May 11, for a continuation of Jerry Boudreau’s informative and humorous briefing on his HO Santa Fe layout in central Oregon. He will start with a brief overview of the layout, followed by details on how he organizes and runs regular operating sessions. He shows some interesting forms and methods that could you help take your own operations to a new level.
The meeting will open at 9:30am PST and Jerry’s presentation begins at 10am and runs for about an hour. We will also record it and post it to the 4dPNRMovies YouTube channel. If you missed his first presentation in March, here is a link to that presentation, well worth watching if you haven’t seen it (it is so good, it has already been watched over 3400 times!): https://youtu.be/sGjaFgxJeUA
The link to join his second presentation on May 11 will be posted here in the Grab Iron a few days before the meeting.
John White, who passed away on March 21st at age 90, was well-known around the NMRA PNR’s 4th Division for serving as chair of the Skagit Valley and Whidbey Clinic for twelve continuous years, 2000-2012. During John’s leadership, average SV&W Clinic attendance doubled, drawing attendees from all of Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands as well as western Skagit and Whatcom counties. Eventually, due to the distances traveled and outgrowing our meeting room, the group divided into the current SV&W and Mt. Vernon Clinics.
Perhaps less well-known across the division was John’s On30 Skagit Valley Eastern (SVE). John was an outstanding modeler and went through a succession of prototypes and scales (as many of us do!), first modeling British prototypes in OO-scale, then the Great Northern in HO. Ultimately, he settled on modeling Skagit County short lines in On30.
The SVE, set in the late 1920s, was loosely based on the Skagit River Railway built by Seattle City Light to haul men, equipment, and a lot of cement to several dam projects on the Upper Skagit River. As John himself described his SVE: “Much poetic license has been used in the type of traffic and scenery!” The layout also incorporates two fictional SVE subsidiaries, the Sauk, Oso & Western Railway and the Wickersham and Chuckanut.
The 14 ft x 44 ft layout consists of four legs, each 2 ft wide and made up mostly of 6 ft x 2 ft modules. Two of the legs comprise the SVE, the third the SO&WR, and the fourth the W&C. All four legs are connected by an oval behind the scenery which permits any train to go from any leg to any other leg. A partition wall down the long dimension of the room divides the layout space in two and supports hand-painted backdrops.
Concrete engine terminal with Skagit Portland Cement looming in the background
The largest town modeled is Concrete, spanning about 30 ft of one of the two legs representing the SVE. Here is a station, engine house, turntable, a Seattle Light & Power powerhouse, and a representation of the town’s vast Superior Portland Cement plant, which John re-imagined as Skagit Portland Cement. Concrete, near extensive limestone deposits, produced enormous quantities of cement over several decades.
The daily Great Northern passenger service arrives in Concrete; the prototype Skagit River Railway connected with the GN at Rockport, WA
The locomotive roster and rolling stock consist mostly of Bachmann products. To many, John added additional details from sources such as Backwoods Miniatures. Of all the elements that make up a model railroad, John enjoyed building structures more than any other; most were scratch built. Just a few of them are illustrated in these photographs. For his larger buildings, John utilized Gatorboard as a structural base for its rigidity and humidity resistance, gluing siding and roofing material to it. John described his methods for building structures, his standardized 6 ft x 2 ft modules, scratch built turnouts, and many other topics at SV&W clinics over the years.
The cement plant dominates John’s town of Concrete, as it did in the prototype; a Precision Craft Models Goose provides transportation for local schoolchildrenThe Sauk, Oso & Western Railway’s daily passenger train awaits its departure time from OsoSVE Climax #6 has wandered onto SO&WR rails with a work trainThe SO&WR’s biggest shipper in Oso is Hawkins Dairies Inc.Business is leisurely at Gould Bros. Coal & Coke in OsoA one-stop shop for all your printing needs
John’s Skagit Valley Eastern was frequently opened for visitors, including at least once for the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia “NG Open House” event coordinated by Dave Kreitler. SV&W Clinic members were fortunate to be able to keep up with the layout’s progress during other open houses and, later, operating sessions. The op sessions utilized written train orders and switch lists, a dispatcher, trainmaster, and up to four crews to keep an equal number of trains moving over the railroad.
John and his wife Valerie also hosted a “Wassail” party in British tradition each December, offering food, drink, and camaraderie in their Anacortes home, open to all SV&W Clinic members and all other modelers in the area. The SVE was of course fired up, too. The Wassail was held for at least nine years and was always one of the best events of the year.
John was an active member and supporter of the NMRA and the 4th Division. He was the Guest Speaker at the September 2010 Pacific Northwest Region Convention Banquet, where he described the history and technology of the concrete tie business in North America in which he was an industry pioneer. John received the NMRA 4th Division Superintendent’s Award in 2012 for his exemplary service as the SV&W Clinic Chair.
John makes up a train in Concrete during one of the op sessions on his Skagit Valley Eastern (photo: Al Frasch)
We were saddened to learn of the passing on April 8th of local model railroader, magazine publisher, and N scale master, Kirk Reddie.
Kirk grew up and lived in Shoreline, Wash. He began with an American Flyer train set, shifted to HO in eighth grade, but switched again to N scale in 1975 after reading Jim Hediger’s article “The NTRAK Story.”
Kirk published N Scale Railroading magazine from September 2000 through January 2020, after which it continued as a free bi-monthly downloadable PDF until October 2022. It had subscribers all over the world. He knew N scalers everywhere! Kirk was fortunate to combine his two life passions: writing and model railroading.
Kirk’s home layout, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound, was housed in a 9,200 sq. ft. building and was the subject of many articles in N Scale Railroading. It was featured in the November 2022 issue of Model Railroader. Set in the Pacific Northwest, circa 1950, the layout modeled five railroads (Great Northern; Milwaukee Road; Northern Pacific; Pacific Coast RR; Spokane, Portland & Seattle; Tacoma Belt Line; and Union Pacific) between Argo Junction and Black River Junction, south of Seattle.
Kirk attended Shoreline High School and the University of Washington, where he received a bachelor’s degree in accounting, his CPA license, and later a master’s in business. Kirk loved to learn and excelled in school. In high school, he was an Honor Society member, a wrestler, and a trumpeter and drum major in the band. Kirk also played in the UW Marching Band and inspired those around him to share their talents. He said, “Hobbies are great in many ways; in one sense, they don’t matter and in another, they reflect who we aspire to be.”
Kirk Reddie passed peacefully at Northwest Hospital on April 8, 2024. He will be deeply missed. Per his request, there will be no services, but a celebration of life will be held this spring. Donations may be made to the Make-A-Wish Foundation or to your local food bank. Arrangements: Beck’s Funeral Home, Edmonds (425) 771-1234.
4D members are invited to leave comments about Kirk below.
This month, the Eastside Clinic will look in on the Friday night Olympia Clinic. The information on the Olympia Clinic is posted in the Grab Iron. Here is the link:
Time: Apr 19, 2024 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Our April 2024 Tacoma clinic will be this Thursday, April 11th at 7:00 PM. It will again follow the hybrid format with both in-person and virtual structure. Join us in-person at 9402 47th St. W, University Place, WA. If you can’t make it person, join us virtually on Zoom.
This month I will be digging into the archives to present a clinic I first put together and was published in Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine in 2010, entitled “Weathering Scrap Gondolas.” This clinic focuses on modeling the most abused of freight cars, with particular attention to the empty interior. This method produces great results, is easy, and pretty much impossible to screw up.
Attendees are encouraged to participate in the Bring and Brag portion of the meeting both in-person and virtually. I hope you can join us!
4dpnrOrganizer Tacoma is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
In the final instalment of our operations series, Scott Nelson, of the OMRS will discuss his switching layout and how he uses JMRI (a computer based operations generator) to operate his railroad operations.
Scott will describe and show his layout and talk about how he envisioned it to operate, then put that vision into JMRI to create the scenarios.
This clinic will give you both practical small railroad ideas and technical computer generated operational ideas. You won’t want to miss it!
Time: Apr 19, 2024 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Our clinic will be in the basement auditorium of the Panorama Quinault Apartment building known as the Seattle Room (across the hall from our old meeting room).
