In communication with our gracious venue host – Summerhill Assisted Living Facility – we have cancelled our March 12th clinic due to risk to residents and visitors during this time of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak. In accordance with the Washington State Department of Health guidelines related to the outbreak emergency, Summerhill will be enforcing a “no-visitor” policy until further notice. SV&W respects and understands this decision.
We are still planning to have our regular clinic on the 8th of April at the Summerhill venue provided we have better news in a few weeks on this epidemic. In mean-time we are advising all model railroaders to be safe and observe good preventative measures.
Why I signed up several years ago to serve as Superintendent.
Serving as your 4D Superintendent is a privilege. I get to act on behalf of all members in trying to enhance the experience of model railroading. So, I have tried to meet as many members as possible, ask them what their interests in the hobby are and what skills they were interested in sharing. I have learned a lot that helps me in my modeling and I am constantly surprised and challenged to do better in my model building. There are a lot of you out there who do share and teach others.
Recruiting remains the biggest challenge, trying to get others to share experience and expertise. Many have been willing to do so. That’s why we have such a successful schedule of local clinics and modular layouts. There are also very strong regional efforts such as Oly-Ops and the annual Tacoma Layout Tours.
The benefits to me include working with you and others on the Board and at the events such as MOHAI and Pacific Science Center shows. So, I thank all of you who do give time to the hobby through 4D activities.
Officers of 4D such as Superintendent are elected every two years. Several years ago, I ran successfully for Assistant Superintendent and then became Superintendent. After many years now, I became concerned that others might want to put their views forward and lead us to greater success. That’s why I said I would like to step away to give someone else the opportunity. So, I have recommended to the Board that we will extend the nominating period one more month to see.
If you want to serve or nominate someone else, contact Lisa Murray, Nominating Committee Chair, mattinata@outlook.com.
The Fourth Division is pleased to announce that this year’s Spring Meet will be held on May 16–17, 2020. Saturday the 16th will be filled with great clinic sessions at Everett Community College. Sunday the 17th will be Layout Tour Open Houses, where you’ll get to see the great layouts of some local model railroaders.
Full details will be coming soon. For right now, mark the weekend of May 16-17 on your calendar. You won’t want to miss it!
Standard gauge trains were the premium toy/model trains in the interwar period, big, bold and tough. These have become quite the collectors items and a few of us are proposing that we form a Standard gauge running group using loose lay track and not, initially at least, a modular group. The idea is that we try out running these bold trains at shows and/or in retirement communities to see what the public reception is, understanding that these original trains may well predate the audience.
The BIG question is, are there any of you NMRA/PNR/4D members interested in participating with your Standard gauge trains and/or accessories in this exciting endeavor? If so please write to Ed Ives at Gresley7@gmal.com and do it soon, please.
Don’t Forget: Starting in February 2020, the Eastside Clinic will be held on the 3rd WEDNESDAYof every month at least through June. (Time and location remain the same.)
The NMRA/PNR Fourth Division Redmond Clinic for February was held Wednesday evening at the Redmond Community Center, Alex Brikoff presiding. The gathering was brought to order at 7:05 PM. Notable and new attendees were introduced followed by upcoming events of interest being announced. Refer to the Grab-Iron calendar for details.
There were numerous Show and Tell (Bring and Brag) items. Several outstanding dioramas were presented. A Sn3 caboose and a 2×5 foot blank/starter module were among those shown. A showpiece for kids at the regional train shows, made up from foot square CNC milled “rails” panels in their own carrying case, was offered to get the young folks interested and occupied. This was possibly the most relevant attraction for the future of the hobby to be seen at our shows.
The
program for the evening were two modelling clinics presented by our counter
parts at the Mt. Vernon Clinic.
The
first was presented by Ted Becker as part of our Mini Clinic Event scheduled
for March. Ted showed us how he installs
and utilizes small, inexpensive RC model servos to operate as switch machines
for turnouts. Ted brought several items to show the details in adapting servos as
switch machines.
The second clinic was a joint presentation by Nick Muff and Al Carter about creating and applying model railroad decals and graphics. Nick first showed us how to create custom decals by researching the graphics online on Google. He then showed how to import the graphics into a popular graphics program on your computer such as Auto Sketch and scale the graphic to the correct size along with how to edit the graphic to enhance the visual quality. He then showed us how print the decal onto decal paper using an ALPS printer. Al Carter then showed us the techniques and tools he used to apply the decal to the model after preparing the surface. He also discussed the pros and cons of the various tools that he uses to apply the decals.
Please
note that the Model/Photo of the Month Contests and Door Prize Give Aways have
been suspended due to lack of donations for prizes.
Refreshments (coffee and cookies) were provided by C. J. Turner.
George Bogatiuk, Director of Sales and Support for Soundtraxx will be at the Northwest Railway Archives in Burien this Sunday evening for a special presentation and clinic on Soundtraxx decoders.
Bring all your questions about installations and programing decoders for your specific locomotives.
The meeting will start at 6:30 at the Archives located at:
There will be a Tacoma/Puyallup area Model Railroad tour on Saturday and Sunday April 18 & 19, 2020, from 9:00am – 4:00pm. There will be multiple layouts which will be open to Model Railroad fans. Some will be open Saturday only, others on Sunday only.
Maps to, and descriptions of, each of the layouts will be available starting at 8:00 am on the 18th, at Rob’s Trains and Hobbies. He will be opening his store early and will be offering a 10% discount to those requesting a tour map.
This is a great opportunity to see some excellent modeling in all stages of completion, and save on your hobby needs!
Rob’s Trains and Hobbies
5423 South Tacoma Way
Tacoma, WA 98409
253-472-7732
Twenty-three gathered at
Summer Hill in Oak Harbor for February’s SV&W NMRA Clinic, welcomed by
Clinic Chair Rich Blake. After reviewing the calendar, Rich to
everyone’s delight showed some photos of Al
Frasch’s new N-scale layout that he’s nearly completed in his new home near
Tucson, AZ. Al, a former long-time
member, newsletter editor, and tireless booster of our clinic as well as model
railroad operations in the area, built his new layout in less than two years. Not unexpected from this energetic
modeler—good work, Al!
For Show-and-Tell, Alan Murray brought in his O-scale road overpass (Fig 1).
Fig 1 – Alan Murray’s Road Overpass (WIP)
This is a work-in-progress and Alan will describe the overpass construction in detail at our March meeting. He brought it this evening to show the details of the bents and stringers that will (by next month!) be hidden by roadway decking. The overpass has a home: it will feature in one town on Jon Bentz’s in progress On30 layout in Freeland, joining many other scratch structures already in place. Your reporter visited Jon’s layout recently and it will be a welcome addition to our clinic area’s operations-focused layouts. Beta-testing will start this Spring; no pressure, Jon!
Fig 2 – Another View of Alan’s Overpass
The main subject matter at the meeting was “The World’s Last Woodburners” presented by your Grab Iron reporter. That’s a rather sweeping title, because woodburning steam locos were scattered around the world here and there, on preserved railroads, in museums and so forth, but only in a very few places did entire fleets of motive power in everyday, workaday use still burn wood. Your reporter visited two such places in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The first was the Philippines.
Fig 3 – Victorias Millyard, Philippines
The Philippine woodburners were found on the island of Negros, one of the country’s 7,000-plus islands. Here were the majority of the Philippines’ Sugar Centrals, 45 of which were founded by American companies, most between 1912 and 1927. Victorias Milling Company (Fig 3) was the largest of them all, at its peak grinding over 16,000 tons of cane each day during the milling season. All of the motive power—in this case 0-8-0’s—burned wood. Combined, the sugar railroads had over 1,000 miles of track fanning out like a spider web from the coast into the cane fields, on several gauges. Victorias had the most unusual: 600mm, which at 1 foot 11 and 5/8 inches was essentially 2 foot gauge—but not quite!
