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Grab Iron Posts

4D Logo Redesign Contest, 1st Notice

Written by Chip Van Gilder
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By Alex Brikoff

 

To ALL 4D members:

 

It’s time to up-date our 4D logo.  For some time the Board has heard comments urging an up-date to simplify our logo, as did the NMRA.  Let’s have a contest, with all submissions due NO LATER than Monday, April 10, 2017 in time for display at our Spring Meet, April 15.  Entrants might find it useful to go online to read one of several articles like “10 Common Mistakes in Logo Design” and/or to ask friends/relatives with graphic art skills or experience to participate.

  • Logo entry must have name and contact information
  • Format is to be either Raster based or Vector based (see specifics below):
    • Raster (bitmap) based: Image needs to be 12 inches x 12 inches, 150 DPI resolution and saved as either a .JPG or .TIF file type.
    • Vector based (Preferred) created in either Adobe illustrator or similar graphics application and saved as either a .EPS or .AI file.
  • Send submission(s) to Membership committee member:   abrikoff@frontier.com
  • Note that all attendees attending the Spring Meet can vote.
  • The “top three” vote-getters will be finalists.
  • Non-attendees can ask friends who DO attend to Text photos so that non-attendees can e-mail a preference or favorite to:  abrikoff@frontier.com
  • The 4D Board and Membership Committee members have the prerogative of asking graphics-minded friends, logo designers and/or “branding” specialists to comment, opinionate and/or tweak the top three submissions, arriving at a winner.
  • Results will be published in the Grab Iron and contributors recognized and applauded.

Bob Rorabaugh and Alex Brikoff, Co-chair Logo Up-date team

News

PNW Pennsy Meeting, March 18th

Written by Chip Van Gilder
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David Yadock

 

There will be a meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society this Saturday March 18th.  The meeting will start at 12:30 pm and after the meeting we will go out to dinner at one of the local restaurants nearby.  The meeting is held at the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive in Burien.  http://pnrarchive.org/SitePages/Home.aspx
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News

The Footplate – a Report from your Superintendent

Written by Russ Segner
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Russ Segner

This has been a very busy first quarter in the Fourth Division.

The Seattle Center Show in January was one of the best attended shows in years. In addition to the many fine modular layouts operating, this show featured many smaller demonstrations of modeling and operation reflecting a shift in emphasis from just running trains to helping attendees understand “how to”. We will see much more of this in coming years with a focus on education about railroads.
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Superintendent’s Message

Eastside Get Together

Written by Russ Segner
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Post by Russ Segner

 

Our next program will feature John Morrison. John has a very large garden railway at his home in Kirkland.  He has scratch built many locomotives for his layout.

He will feature a PowerPoint slide presentation of the locomotives of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society in Melbourne Australia. This is an operating 30″ gauge railway which uses a 2-6-0 + 0-6-2 Garratt and a number of small 19th century Baldwin 2-6-2s.

G Class Engine found on The Puffing Billy web site

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Eastside Get-Together (Redmond) Clinic, News

Seattle-North Clinic – Next Meeting is 3/2/17

Written by Jeff Moorman
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By Jeff Moorman

 

Important note regarding meeting arrangements. For the months of February, March, and April we will be meeting downstairs in the church Fellowship Hall, not upstairs where we have been. That space is being used to temporarily house a tax service. However, the church hosts community dinners in the Fellowship HalI on the evenings we meet. Those dinners end at 7:00, so their clean-up will overlap our set-up. Therefore, we may encounter some situations where we need to be flexible.

Next Clinic: The next Seattle-North clinic is Thursday, March 2, 2017. The plan is to explore the subject of creating layout backgrounds, plus resume another installment in our fallen flags mini-clinics.

Last Clinic: Our “surprise” video was from Bobj who also supplied occasional narration. It was mostly a series of edited cuts, that hadn’t yet been combined into a contiguous piece. It showed some of the same gorgeous western Canadian scenery and the same lovely Canadian steam as “Rocky Mountain Express”.

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Seattle-North Clinic

Day Out With Thomas Returns to Snoqualmie in July, Tickets on Sale March 6th

Written by Cliff Green
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Peggy Barchi, Marketing/Events Manager

Thomas The Tank Engine™ To Visit Snoqualmie, WA on July 14-16 and July 21-23!

Thomas the Tank Engine at the Northwest Railway Museum

All aboard! Thomas the Tank Engine invites little engineers to join him for a day of friendship and family fun at “Day Out with Thomas: The Friendship Tour 2017”. Children everywhere can spend the day with their friend Thomas when the #1 Engine pulls into the Northwest Railway Museum on July 14-16 and July 21-23. “Day Out with Thomas: The Friendship Tour 2017” is presented by Mattel.

This fun-filled event offers children and their families the opportunity to take a ride with Thomas the Tank Engine, star of the popular Thomas & Friends™ series. In addition, they will meet Sir Topham Hatt, Controller of the Railway and enjoy a day of Thomas-themed activities. The tour, now in its 22nd year, will make 42 stops across the U.S. and Canada and is expected to welcome nearly one million passengers in 2017.

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Northwest Railway Museum

Skagit Valley and Whidbey Clinic February Meeting 2017

Written by Chip Van Gilder
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12 Inch Square Diorama Contest

Article and Photos by Rich Thom

 

The SV&W NMRA Clinic’s February meeting topic was the long-anticipated (well, since September anyway) diorama contest, this year shepherded by Phil and Susan Gonzales. The rules were simple: Build a small diorama, not to exceed 12 inches square [ed.], that tells a story. The mini-scenes could be any scale, and any height or depth so long as their footprints did not exceed the specified area. Entry categories were: scratch; kit; kit bash; and humorous.

Attendance on the night was lower than usual due to threatening weather, and we’re sure that several more dioramas were intended to be entered. (Those modelers are invited to bring in their work to the March meeting.) But the ones brought in on this evening were both clever and beautifully-constructed. Awards were presented using “Peoples’ Choice” voting, rather than any formal scoring system. Without further ado, let’s show the dioramas and say a few words about how each was constructed.

 

Fig 1- Cliff Aaker’s Station Scene, Platform Side

Fig 1 shows Cliff Aaker’s O-scale scratch-built station scene. The story: A boy is tempted to pet a frisky dog, left, but his mother, center, is unsure about it. Another pair of passengers, apparently more sure about their petting, awaits the train on the right. Note the stationmaster visible in the window; to see his other side, just turn Cliff’s diorama around …

 

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Skagit Valley and Whidbey Island Clinic