by Al Babinsky

Editors note: The date of Walt Huston’s open house has been corrected to May 23rd.

Al Babinsky moderated the clinic since MMR Gene Swanson was unable to attend (he was bringing his wife home from the hospital). We had 45 modelers attending with no newcomers at this time. Walt Huston announced that he was having an open house of his layout on Saturday May 23rd, and invited anyone that was interested to come out and visit. Jim Sabol made a couple of announcements on the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad and the future of the passenger service along the Prairie line. The Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad will have its shop facilities at Mineral open for visitors and the owner will move his 7.5” railroad to Mineral in the near future. The Freighthouse Square Sounder Station will be expanded to accommodate the Amtrak Coast Starlight as well as the Amtrak Cascades and the line will go through Lakewood and connect to the mainline near Olympia.

“What’s New at the Hobby Shop” was presented by Bill Sandstrom for Tacoma Trains hobby shop which included a number of scenic items from Woodland Scenics, one of which was a burning structure. A firetruck and its crew could be used to make a scene of extinguishing the structure fire. A set of N scale weathered hopper cars, an Athearn Genesis locomotive, and a set of ON30 wood-sided dump cars from Bachmann completed Bill’s announcements.

In the “Model of the Month” category Chris Clancy had a couple of GE UC33Cs and weathered freight cars, some of which he purchased at an antique store. Paul Vaughn brought one of his HO to Sn3 conversions which always looks great. Tyler Wickham modified a Blair Line Pizzeria kit into a tavern called Drunken Clam which sported a Miller Engineering animated sign proclaiming the Drunken Clam. MMR Dale Kraus brought a European box car that he shortened so it could be used on his narrow gauge line. Jim Clower brought a couple of Oriental Import hopper cars. Ken Levine brought a box car and B&O passenger car kit that he purchased at a swap meet, adding weathering, metal wheels, and Kadee couplers. The “Model of the Month” winner was Tyler Wickham with his Drunken Clam tavern.

Our clinic for this month was given by Steve Carter on operating train order boards. These train order boards are going to be used in eight locations on the PSMRE layout. The train order board (signal) is from Tomar, the control board, servo motors and linkage are from several manufacturers including the radio controlled airplane world. At this time one train order board is installed on the layout at the Kanasket station and is operational with computer control. The signals will eventually be controlled by the dispatcher with a control panel.

Next month’s clinic will be on May 14th at our usual location in the Pierce County Library Admin Bldg. on the corner of 112th Street and Waller Road at 7:30 PM. Hope to see all of you there. The clinic for May will be given by Mike Shaw on the use of Fast Track jigs when building switches and crossings.