Time to get busy. Remember that our contest to build a diorama is for display at the Pacific Science Center Show next January. Here are the guidelines: 12” x 24” maximum footprint – use a 12” x 24” piece of ¾ inch pink foam or equivalent. Home Depot has 24” x24” pieces which can be cut in half with the balance used for the terrain you want to add.
The rules are very simple:
Any scale
Must have a railroad theme
Should exhibit skills and techniques common to model railroading.
May be animated and/or lighted. No external power will be available.
“Write a piece for the Grab Iron on the construction of layout modules”, they said, like there was only one. Each modular group in 4D have their own module standards and there is at last count five modular groups in 4D; two N gauge; one HO, one On30 and the O gauge Hi-Railer’s. I’m with the latter.
Why modular? – Modular layouts are a way of attending events, in plain view of the public, displaying our craft and hopefully encouraging new membership. This is something your very fine layout in the basement has difficulty doing. Within as little as four weeks you could have a basic module suitable for using at the next train show. The module can be transported in the trunk of the average car or the back of an SUV with plenty of room to bring you favorite trains to run. The added benefit is you’ll make friends both within your group and between groups. It can be a very social activity.
The ‘basic’ Hi-Rail module is a table 50 inches wide, 30 inches deep and a nominal 36 inches height with +/- 1″ adjustment. The table top is made of 1 x 4’s on edge for all four sides. The top is plywood 5 mm thick or upwards. Remember the thicker the plywood, the heavier this thing gets. The table sits on four legs, one close to each corner. The legs, either 1 x 2 or 2 x 2 wood may be permanently attached with locking hinges or removeable set in sockets. I prefer the former as you can’t get the, ‘Oh Gosh’ moment on set up at a show realizing that you brought the module and left the legs at home. This would not have been the first time for this to happen. The aim is that any module may connect to any other module using standard ‘C’ clamps.
Track – We use the O gauge tubular (not O27) or Gargrave’s flex track set on cork roadbed 4 inches and 7 1/2 inches in from the front edge in the table for a double track. The track and roadbed to terminate 5 inches in from each end. Ballasting the track is a teaser. One can use the commercial packets of O gaugeballast and buy several packets or an alternative. We use the latter; roofing grit, the stuff they use on wet tar roofing. It comes in a variety of colors. I bought some grey which in the event was more blue than grey. The ‘group’ was highly critical of this ‘grey’ so I have the best part of 100 pounds of this stuff to lose, somewhere. The second choice was builder’s sand, not play sand, screened using an old flour sieve. This yields a nice quantity of suitable gravel but makes for a heavy module. Remember, these modules are mobile and have to be lifted and carried. The last try is to use ground walnut shells as used for grit blasting paint removal. The color and size is good but the drawback is the minimum quantity to buy is 100 pounds. I’ve used this stuff for a good fifteen years and still have three quarters of it left. If you speak to me nicely I’ll let you have some.
Electrically we use two power busses, one for each track. Color coding the wiring is imperative. Since we use three rail track, a red 14 AWG feeder wire is used for the center rail of the outside track; yellow 14 AWG wire for the center rail of the inside track and all running rails to have white 14 AWG feeder wires. Power drops from the rails to the feeder to also be color coded the same as the feeders and be 16 AWG. All wiring to be stranded. Modules are electrically connected together using rectangular six pin trailer plugs.
Hi-Railer Modules on display
Scenery is your choice and shall be complete within your module or modules if you produce more than one.
NOW THE WARNING LABEL – Belonging to a module group is addictive (and fun).
Like most things module building can get out of hand. I started with one locomotive and ten freight cars with a need to run someplace other than on track on the living room floor. I could easily transport this all in a cardboard box. I started with one module carried in the trunk of the car, then needing a truck, then a trailer behind the truck, then a full size van to pull the trailer. All this because I now have at last count 26 mostly customized modules for specific use, more in various stages of build and of course numerous trains.
We will be “Baby sitting” the layouts Monday the 19th
and Tuesday the 20th from 8:00 a.m. until about 10:00 p.m. During this time, we will be making small tweaks
and repairs to the layout and running some long trains which, we don’t normally
operate during a show. Feel free to visit us then.
The Fair’s daily hours of operation are:
Wednesday Aug 21st – 12 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Thursday Aug 22nd – Saturday Aug 24th – 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Sunday Aug 25th – 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Bremerton Northern Model Railroad has entered into an agreement with the Kitsap Mall for a one-year lease for a store. The store front is next door to Kohl’s. We are hoping to have the lease in place so we can move in right after the Kitsap County Fair.
We are excited to have a permanent home where we can setup, work on and display our layouts to the public. We will be displaying at least 3 layouts. HO Kitsap Western, N-TRAK, and HO junior engineers’ layout. Plans include: Expansion our HO Kitsap Western layout and creating attachments to run operation/switching exercises. Finishing existing and building new N-TRAK modules. And refurbishing several other donated layouts.
Currently we plan be open to the public for operations most Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. We will be maintaining our current show schedule so we will miss a few Saturdays. One advantage to this arrangement is work parties may occur every day. Our agreement with the Mall allows us to work on the layouts without being open to the public.
Every year the National Model Railroad Association presents several different types of awards. This year, as announced at the NMRA National Convention in Salt Lake City, the Fourth Division had three winners!
The President’s Award for Division Service was awarded to Gene Swanson, MMR. This Award is awarded by the NMRA President to one individual in a Division in each Region per year, who had done outstanding “beyond-the-call-of-duty” work to make his or her local division effective, engaging, and welcoming to Members. As we already know, Gene was presented with his award at the Spring Meet.
President’s Award for Division Service awarded to Gene Swanson (left). Photo by Ken Liesse.
The President’s Award was awarded to Di Voss, MMR, for service as the Manager of the Standards & Conformance Department. This award is given by the NMRA President for outstanding service to the NMRA. Di was in this position for about 10 or 12 years.
The Meritorious Service Award was awarded to Ken Liesse by the NMRA Marketing Department in recognition of the work he has done and continues to do administering the NMRA Facebook presence on the Internet. Ken has been doing this function for 10 years.
Di Voss (left) with President’s Award, and Ken Liesse (right) with Meritorious Service Award. Photo by BLiessePhoto.
Congratulations on your well-deserved awards Gene, Di, and Ken!
Have you looked at the 4D website lately? On the right side of the menu is a drop-down titled “Get Inspired”. I hadn’t looked in there for some time and when I did recently, I discovered that there is some really helpful material there. The Articles & Presentations are written by many of our members you will recognize as very active and talented model railroaders. I had read some of the topics when they were first presented and recognize some of them as a write up of presentations at clinics. There is some really good stuff there!
So recently when Larry Sloan showed me his new corner modules he had made for his modular club, I asked him if he would write an article describing what he did and how others could use his techniques to make two very clever corner modules. They are not your typical corner. Take a look here. It’s the one titled “45 Degree Free-mo Module”. Great job, Larry. Thanks for sharing.
Having attended the National Model Railroad convention in Salt Lake City July 7-13 I thought I’d share some of the fun stuff you can do at this once a year event. My friend and I arrived by car Sunday afternoon July 7 in time to register and attended an excellent clinic by Bruce DeYoung about “Blending Backgrounds and Foregrounds”. His key message in placing back drops behind the foreground scene is to “Blend It’, Bend It or Hide It”.
There were five clinic tracks with up to eight a day per track so 40 clinics each day. The challenge was choosing a clinic among so many good choices including history, scenery, and many others. Another of my favorites was Tools, Tools, Tools by Doug Geiger MMR. On Wednesday I joined the Layout Design folks to tour 25 layouts throughout the great SLC area. I choose to travel north to Ogden to visit Rob Spangler’s excellent Western Pacific double deck layout set in the 70s. Rob hosts regular operating sessions using car cards and way bills with Digitrax DCC. I’m attaching a photo from that visit.
Rob Spangler’s Western Pacific layout
Another beautiful layout I visited was set in the 1880s built by Steve Blodgett called the Bear River Railroad. You can see Steve in my attached photo. This layout is only run by Steve and runs beautifully with long passenger and freight equipment built by Steve.
Steve Blodgett and Bear River Railroad
After attending more clinics Thursday I traveled to Alpine, UT about 30 miles south of SLC to operate on Ted York’s famous Santa Fe Cajon Pass layout. Ted hosted almost 20 operators in various jobs that kept us all busy the entire night using real Santa Fe switch lists and train orders. I’ve attached a photo of the San Bernardino yard where I operated a switch job.
Ted York’s Sante Fe Cajon Pass layout
Friday morning was the National Train Show, always a highlight that attendees get in free. This is a wonderful opportunity to see the latest products offered by hobby manufacturers, people selling their model RR stock and many excellent modular layouts. The NMRA convention will be in St. Louis next summer so plan to attend.
Some weeks ago I read in the times about a new writer Christy Karras who was looking for general interest stories “in things that make life worth living” so I emailed her about the wonders of model railroading. She wrote back the idea was interesting and asked me to send more info. I sent her two dates which were an open house at Dave Woodrell’s home and the 4th Division Spring Meet at Tacoma Community College. She ended up attending the Tacoma Spring Meet“Make-And-Take” clinic. Then she emailed me and wanted to know if CJ Riley was C.J. or CJ like JJ with no periods. I checked with CJ and let her know. I asked when the story might appear and she said perhaps on July 21, 2019. So today in the Seattle Times her story appeared in the Pacific NW Magazine. Also interesting in the publication on the back page in Now & Then is a short story about Seattle’s Pacific Coast Railway. Be sure to pick up a copy of today’s paper to share with friends and family.
The article is also available in the online edition of the paper:
Let’s build something! Announcing a contest to build a diorama for display at the Pacific Science Center Show next January. Here are the guidelines:
12” x 24” maximum footprint – use a 12” x 24” piece of ¾ inch pink foam or equivalent. Home Depot has 24” x24” pieces. Cut a base and use remainder to build elevations.
Any scale
Must have a railroad theme
Should exhibit skills and techniques common to model railroading
May be animated and/or lighted. No external power will be available.
Entrant must be an active member of 4D/PNR
Entries will be judged at the Boeing Swap Meet this Fall and many will be displayed at the Pacific Science Center Show in 2020.
Here are some fine example dioramas from years past, built by 4D/PNR members:
Bay Lumber No 2 rumbling past the Camp 4 freight house with a load of logs.
This was our 7th year participating in this event and it is one of our favorites as the museum provides a great gallery space for our layout. Since this is one of the less known “trainshows” there is considerably less spectator traffic than the big shows around Puget Sound. This allows us to focus more on operations and having fun with our layout and equipment.
Eric Sitiko as conductor and Alan Murray as engineer operating on the east end of the layout. Cliff Aaker and Byron Osborn working the Willapa Cranberry module.Paul Vaughn running the layout as Dispatcher. The separate room for the dispatcher was a nice location.
We ran two days of TTTO operations and are now
sporting a new station stop semaphore built by Cliff Aaker that is controlled
by an Arduino CPU board and a servo. The
dispatcher also acting as station operator can now use a TV remote control to
operate the semaphore to indicate stop for orders at the station. It really adds a prototypical element to our
operations.
The 23 Extra West stopped at Wye Tank to collect a set of train orders. Note the tower and semaphore indicating “stop” signal. This active signalling feature is raised and lowered with a TV remote control by the dispatcher. The tower was designed and built by Cliff Aaker and uses an Arduino micro computer to control the servo logic and infrared sensor.
The group also had the good fortune through Paul Vaughn’s efforts of gathering a large donation of structures from George Chambers of Issaquah. He graciously donated the items due to a downsize in living arrangements with the only caveat that the structures be displayed for all to enjoy. We have several spots for these finely detailed structures and they really add a lot of visual interest and operational opportunities. Thanks George!!!
Nice Barber Shop and Power Plant structure donated to the group by George Chambers.Small station with figures along with other small items donated by George Chambers.
Everybody had fun and enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend. This event runs every year on the 2nd weekend in July so start planning now and maybe we will see you next year.
