Gerry Leone, Communications Director

Fundraising has begun for the Magic of Scale Model Railroading gallery at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, CA. As your members will probably recall, this gallery will introduce the Museum’s 600,000 annual visitors to the hobby, as well as give them a sense of its history. One of the highlights of the gallery will be actual portions of the finest model railroads ever built. The Museum has donated the space rent-free to the NMRA for the purpose of promoting the hobby.  It’s estimated that the cost to build the exhibit will be approximately $750,000, and no NMRA dues or monies will be used. Instead, it will be entirely funded by donations. To date, over $100,000 has been raised, and an anonymous donor has agreed to match donations, up to $250,000. Anyone who would like to donate should send his tax-deductable donation to NMRA Headquarters at 4121 Cromwell Road., Chattanooga, TN  37421-2119, and mark it “Gallery donation.”

In the February edition of the InfoNet News, we reported the agreement of cooperation between the NMRA and the www.Hasea.com Model Railroad Association of China. This July we’ll be seeing the first fruits of that “Hands Across The Ocean” agreement as a group of teenage Chinese modelers and railfans visits California with the purpose of seeing layouts, prototype trains, and the California State Railway Museum. Several Pacific Coast Region members are helping to organize this 2-week event.

Grand Rails 2012, the upcoming NMRA national convention, has announced their commemorative convention car. Grand Rapids, Michigan, was once known as The Furniture Capital of the World, and appropriately the model was inspired by a postcard photograph of a turn-of-the-last-century furniture manufacturer’s wood-sided boxcar. This replica, produced by Accurail, comes complete with a Grand Rails 2012 logo “poster” which can be applied by the modeler. Visit www.gr2012.org to see a shot of the prototype. Grand Rails 2012 has also posted a preliminary clinic schedule for the convention at their website. Clinicians include: NMRA Worldwide Director Tony Koester, Jim Six, Jim Sacco, and clinics by the Layout Design Sig.

Grand Rails 2012 is looking for volunteers who’d be willing to donate an hour or two of their time at the convention doing things like contest room security, helping with registration check-in, silent auction set-up and tear-down, and bus loading. If you’re interested and have an hour or two you’d like to donate, contact Mark Baldwin, Vice Chair of Volunteers. Just use the “Contact Us” link on the Grand Rails 2012 website at www.gr2012.org.