Article and photos by Ken Liesse
Thirty-nine members and one guest were in attendance as JJ Johnston presided over the St. Patrick’s Day version of the Eastside Get-Together Thursday evening. Most members were dressed for the occasion by wearing something green, especially Bobj Berger and Jim Easley. Bobj sported huge, bright green glasses while Jim brought some class to the event with a green bow tie (yes, it coordinated with the rest of his outfit).
Several people had announcements for the good of the order, starting with JJ’s reminder of the upcoming Olympia layout open houses. Ed Liesse let everyone know that if they change their email address, to make sure the new address is given to the NMRA headquarters with Ed copied in, or just sent to Ed and he will forward the new information to National. (eeliesse@aol.com) Please pass this information on to others, as those who have changed their addresses may not be receiving the information.
Bobj Berger announced that Rev. Roger Ferris suffered a stroke on March 15. Roger is still in the hospital and Bobj was not sure when he would be going home. Bobj brought several estate sales for the mart, augmented by some items Russ Segner supplied from Earl Mann’s estate.
Mark Anderson let everyone know that he will again be heading up the train show in Issaquah, which is now set for August 13th from 10 to 4. Russ reminded everyone of the upcoming NRHS convention in Tacoma and its accompanying steam trains, including Daylight 4449. He also mentioned the upcoming steam special at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railway on May 21st. Bobj said that NMRA members could get a discount for this trip by purchasing tickets from RailsNW.com (www.railsnw.com).
JJ announced the passing of long-time Eastside participant Paul Miller. Paul had recently been diagnosed with cancer and entered the hospital shortly after last month’s clinic. Peter Ormiston brought a card for members to sign and will present it to Paul’s family. We then held a moment of silence for Paul, Roger and the victims of the recent earthquake in Japan.
Bring and brag had six great entries this month. Jim Easley won with a G scale model of a building at Bernina Hospiz in Switzerland. Jim’s building was made mostly from Styrofoam and was a lot lighter than it looked. Other entries included Di Voss’ mockup for a brewery he’s building for his Everett & Monte Cristo, Bob Biese’s loaded gondola, a 1935 American Flyer train brought in by Jim Martin, and a Campbell fire station from David Yadock. The field was rounded out by John Socha-Leialoha’s latest creation, an HO scale model of a slag cart. Additional pictures of these models can be seen at https://picasaweb.google.com/ken.liesse/EastsideClinic31711#.
After the break, Jim Sabol presented a brand new clinic on the nuances of how real railroads move cars from A to B, including a look at why they would want to in the first place. The focus was the importance of freight yards to the real railroads and how we can use them in our modeling. Jim showed how it was possible to have realistic operations with a yard made up of just two tracks. As was appropriate for the day, the featured load in Jim’s clinic was a boxcar full of beer. We all assume it was green fro St. Patrick’s Day.
Jim then passed out plans for the yard on his own layout; a 10’ x 55’ monster built in O scale. Even though the tracks are not complete, Jim already has the operation of the yard mapped out and is ready to implement operations on his layout from the first day of “power on.” We thanked Jim’s wife, Mary, for bringing Jim with her to the meeting to present a wonderful clinic.
The program for April’s meeting has not been determined, but JJ is looking into the possibility of having the June meeting at Chooch Industries in Maple Valley. More information on this will be forthcoming.