The Tacoma clinic kicks off the season on Thursday, September 8 at 7 PM at the Pierce County Library Admin building, 3005 112th St E, Tacoma 98446. Please note the starting time, as it’s one-half hour earlier than last season. Bring that project you worked on this summer and brag about it.
Additional details, including a map, are available by clicking here.
Next Clinic:
The next Seattle-North clinic is Thursday, September 1. Planned topics include: (1) review of the WHO RR show; (2) a short video of Union Pacific Frontier Days with the newly restored 844 FEF-3 steam locomotive; and (3) another video on Model Locomotive Maintenance. Also, if time allows, we’ll do another in our fallen flag mini-clinic series.
Last Clinic:
Our previous clinic was May 5 and included a short overview of Mexican railroads. We were also treated to a recruiting pep talk by the 4D membership chair. Thom K shared an audio-visual presentation on “Urban Transit” done by Dave Honan for Winter Rail. Dave was unable to attend in person as he has in the past, but we appreciate his making this piece available. You can check out more of his railroad-related photography on his website, davehonan.com.
Don’t forget the Eastside Layout Tour this coming Sunday. This is an opportunity to see the layouts of the Boeing Employees’ Model Railroad Club, Al Lowe and Steve Depolo. For further information, click here.
We have a reserved room through June 2017 for the Eastside Get-Together North Branch Clinic at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse Community Center located at 16600 NE 80th Street in Redmond, WA. The clinics will be held on the third Thursday of every month with the first clinic being held on September 15 starting at 6:45 PM. Click here for clinic times and location, including a map.
Our first Clinic will be presented by Richard Anderson, executive director of the Northwest Railway Museum. He will be giving a presentation about all the current activities going on at the museum. Those activities include the construction of the new Railway Education Center, the restoration progress of the Chapel Car “Messenger of Peace” and its anticipated completion and dedication later this year. There will also be an update on the steam locomotive restoration program and the many other programs currently underway at the Museum.
Photo by Micro-Metakit
It’s a personal opinion, but in the panoply of steam locos, this has to be among the ugliest ever conceived. It’s an Austrian class 57 with a condenser and draft blower attached.
Date: Sep 10
Location: 1801 N Hawthorne Dr., Tacoma, WA 98406 (Click here to view the location on Google Maps)
Hours: 9 AM to 3 PM
NMRA members Steve Cox and Mike Stepner will again be helping a lady in Tacoma sell off her father’s trains on Saturday, September 10th. We didn’t provide enough notice on the previous sale and attendance was limited.
The items are mostly HO scale with a small bit of N scale. The items include multiple used turnouts, DCC decoders and equipment, locos, and rolling stock. The rolling stock ranges from Tyco to Athearn Blue Box. The locos include Life-Like Proto 2000 (P2K), some with DCC installed. The DCC equipment includes DCC Specialties PSX-2 and PSX-4s, a couple of NCE cabs and a base station.
The Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club Annual Swap Meet is Saturday, November 12th from 9:30 am to 4 pm at the Kent Commons Community Center, 525 4th Ave. N, Kent, WA. Admission is $8 with under 16 free.
The BEMRRC Swap Meet is one of the best known and largest swap meets in the region. It started in 1979 as a fund raiser for the club. It’s a great place to find trains of all scales, as well as tinplate, artifacts, photos, videos, and more. Refreshments are available (coffee, donuts, sandwiches, sodas) and there are door prizes every hour as well as a grand prize of $125 to one lucky winner. Table reservations are available for $40 from Ed Sherry at swapmeet@bemrrc.com or 206-244-3884.
We are pleased to announce that the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club has agreed to have their layout open on Sunday August 28th from 10 AM to 3 PM. The address is 425 SW 153th St. in Burien (same building as the Pacific NW RR archive).
This is an addition to open houses at Al Lowe’s and Steve Depolo’s – click here to view the previous Grab Iron post with additional details.
Make a full day of it. Start with the Boeing Club in Burien (open 10 AM to 3 PM) and then head to Bellevue and Woodinville (layouts open from 1 PM to 5 PM). This is a great opportunity to see three excellent approaches to model railroading. For addresses and directions, email me at russseg@gmail.com and I will send maps and contact information.
Two of the layouts originally scheduled for the Eastside layout tour in August have had to cancel. (Mike O’Connell’s mother passed away suddenly and the service is scheduled for the 27th; my wife, Susan, will be recovering from major back surgery the week of the 27th.)
The great news is that we will have two very special layouts open to 4D members and guests on Sunday, August 28th. Steve Depolo invites you to tour his Sn3 Alaska Pacific Rwy in Woodinville. The theme is “Mining in Alaska”.
This is a very large layout with all trackwork finished and scenery almost complete. Steve has scratch built many large mining structures and two complete waterfront scenes. All locomotives have sound decoders and are controlled by NCE. This layout will inspire you.
Al Lowe is one of our NTrak leaders and will show us how he uses his modules in a home layout. When not setting up at local shows, Al has several of his modules organized as a layout in his Bellevue home. These modules are highly detailed. Al has a very creative way of setting them up in his garage.
Both layouts will be open from 1 PM to 5 PM. For addresses and directions, email me at russseg@gmail.com and I will send maps and contact information.
Note – there will be another Eastside layout tour in October in the Renton and Maple Valley areas.
Space at the new Renton Highlands Library has been reserved for the fourth Thursday evening of September (22nd) and October (27th). If this location works for you, please join us at 6:30 pm for time to share and improve your modeling skills. Click here to see the clinics page with additional info including a map.
The September program will include:
If you have a program you would like to present, please contact Russ Segner at 425-228-7327 or russseg@gmail.com.
Come and join in.