By Jeff Moorman

Next Clinic:

Our next clinic meeting is this Thursday, February 5. The topic will be a new video about a layout built by Dr. Scott Campbell. This layout was on one of our special tours a few years back and contains many recognizable scenes from around Washington State. I’ve been told it will show how some of them were done.

Note that the church has started some extensive remodeling. The meeting room we used for the past few clinics will not be available for some months. We are temporarily moving up to the third floor. Please see more specific instructions in the “Directions” section below.

 

Prior Clinic:

Remember, there was no clinic in January. Our December clinician was Mike Bjork who gave a PowerPoint presentation on the Washington and Idaho Railway (WIR), from the perspective of both a former employee and a consulting engineer providing design and construction services. Mike works as a civil engineer and a transit engineer here in Seattle.

Mike’s presentation took us on a tour of the tracks and operations of the Washington and Idaho Railway. The WIR is a modern shortline that operates along the central eastern border of our state. It runs from a BNSF connection in Marshall (just southwest of Spokane) to Palouse with connections to both Harvard and Moscow Idaho. It happens to run right past Mike’s alma mater, WSU.

The railway started in 2006 on trackage of varied heritage. Originally it was mostly NP (I think). It generally hauls agricultural and lumber goods. Mike had several entertaining stories about the WIR’s motive power. There is WIR #20, a GP30M, and WIR #316, a GP16. But perhaps the most interesting is MRLX #2304, a FP9A, in a pseudo Southern Pacific paint scheme. To make it even more interesting consider that #2304 is an ex-VIA locomotive and there is still some French labelling of controls, etc. inside the cab.

Mike’s presentation was very educational and interesting. On top of all that he is a talented photographer. If you want a little flavor of what Mike talked about, go online to RailPictures.net and search for photos of FP9s by Mike Bjork. In fact, search for anything by Mike Bjork. I am sure you will be pleased.

“Show and Tell” had Chris F displaying more of his ongoing HO passenger car project. Although this time it was more about motive power and how swap meet bargains may not turn out as good as you think they will.

 

Directions: We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175th and 185th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings go up the steps to the main entrance.

The next few meetings we will be meeting in the Adult Sunday School room. Once inside the main lobby, take the stairs (or elevator) to the third floor.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, usually September – June. However in June we often do something different, so there may be no “regular” meeting. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next regular evening meeting is February 5. And the one after that is March 5. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.