7:30pm at Highland Baptist Activity Center, 34th and Quaker. Bob Batson will treat us to his experiences with Amtrack travel.
at http://home.earthlink.net/~jackseay . My email is [email protected] mailto:[email protected], . If you want to write a newsletter article, give it to me at the meeting, email it to me, or call me at work, 792-6512.
We will operate Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 1-5. Set up Friday afternoon and take down Sunday afternoon. If you want to have a demo or clinic, contact Henry Crawford, email at [email protected]
Tuesday, February 17, 7:30 at Patrick Pritchett's house, 4702 - 16th St.
March 16-20, Monday - Friday. Tuesday afternoon will include a storytime and Tuesday evening a program for the adults. We will take down Friday.
We will be having a layout tour this spring, possibly in April. Contact me, Jack Seay, if you want to have your layout on the tour. My work number is 792-6512, email [email protected] mailto:[email protected], . The layout tour is always my favorite club event.
HEARTLAND EXPRESS '98
Kansas City, MO July 20-26, 1998
Registrar, HEARTLAND EXPRESS '98, Peter Ellis, 14904 W. 87th St. #154
Lenexa, KS 66215
E-mail:[email protected]
December 15, Dear LMRA Members - I need to let you, that you will see less of me in the next few years to come. I have a new job in Fort Worth, starting January 15th. My duties will be to assist in the movement of locomotives in the shop area, perform fueling, servicing, and clean up of locomotives and work area. My job title is Mechanical Shop Laborer (Fireman, Oiler) I will be working for Union Pacific in the Century Yard Service Area, also known as the Lancaster Yards.
"Yes Yes Yes" "My Dream Job" is here, Good-by Wichita Falls, Good-by Air Planes. For the next two or so years, I will not have any week ends or holidays off and I will be working the mid shift. This is a entry level position, but I got my foot in the door and I can only go up. Any way, who cares? I am going to be a real railroad man. "Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year" - Cho-cho Man
e-mail: [email protected]
Member Ron Warner (S-scale Hi-railer) asks for assistance. I need someone to air-brush (paint) 3 or 4 Amer Flyer caboose shells which I'm kit-bashing. Two or three will need to be masked: roof one color, sides another. I can furnish some of the paint. If you can help, contact me: [email protected] ; at next LMRA meeting; postcard to P.O. Box 1230, Shallowater, TX 79363; and let me know est. cost and arrangements to get the shells to you. Thanks in advance.
Sincerely, Ron Warner
Monday, Feb 9, 7:00pm at Atlas Fasteners, 4910-C Homestead Ave., 792-6512. I will show how to lay track and turnouts with code 40. Bring your soldering iron or spikes, rail and ties, if you want to practice. Everyone welcome.
The words "scale" and "gauge" are often used interchangeably, although they are quite different. Scale means the number of feet (or inches) on your railroad which correspond to one foot or inch on the real railroad. In HO scale 87 inches of the model are equivalent to one inch on the real thing. On a map this would be equivalent to the legend where one inch equals ten miles. Gauge refers only to the distance between the rails and has nothing to do with scale. To use the map analogy, gauge would be the width of the road you were driving on. Therefore, the term "narrow gauge" only refers to distance between the rails. In "standard gauge" track that distance is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches. In a narrow gauge railroad the distance is three feet.
The commonly used abbreviations for scale and gauge are HOn3, Sn3, On3, or Gn3. The letter refers to scale and the "3" refers to three feet between the rails (gauge). In Maine there are some railroads which run on two foot tracks. Since there is no commercially available track which is two feet between the rails, most modelers use N scale track which is actually 2 1/2 feet between the rails. This is abbreviated as HOn2, Hon2 1/2, or HOn30, but they all mean the same thing.
What many people find confusing is that this difference between the rails is the ONLY difference between narrow gauge and standard gauge layouts. On my own layout, which is HOn3, everything on the railroad is HO scale, except the rolling stock, engines and track. This makes narrow gauge very easy to grow into. All the structures, scenery, trees, etc. are in HO scale, only the things which go on the track are narrow.
Usually when one thinks of narrow gauge railroading one usually thinks of Colorado. In fact, narrow gauge lines were found all over the United States (and the world), but the ones in Colorado are by far the most modeled. My railroad is a Denver & Rio Grande Western mining railroad in the late 1920s. The man whose dream became the Denver & Rio Grand Railroad was General William Jackson Palmer. He became a general while fighting in the Civil War. While working on the Kansas Pacific during the time that railroad became one of the first to reach Denver (then a city of about 5,000 people), he envisioned a railroad that would serve the "rural" areas of Colorado. The Denver & Rio Grande was incorporated October 27, 1870 with an authorized capital stock of $2.5 million. General Palmer originally conceived of it running from Denver to Mexico with branch lines extending into the mountains all along the way. His decision to make the railroad narrow gauge was strictly economic. The terrain the railroad would pass through was mind boggling. It would be much less expensive to run three foot track through that country than a standard gauge.
Interestingly, General Palmer neither sought nor received any land grant from the federal government or state governments. He financed the railroad himself! His accomplishments were amazing. To provide rail and fittings faster than the East could supply them, he developed iron-ore and coal deposits along the right-of-way. He organized and brought to production Colorado's only steel mill, The Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation and operated many logging and lumber enterprises.
Many Colorado cities and towns were built because of Palmer's railroad. He founded the city of Colorado Springs. I think today he might be regarded as the Bill Gates of 19th century railroading. Shortly after the Kansas Pacific arrived at Denver, Palmer resigned his post there to tend to the Denver and Rio Grande. The first spike of that railroad was driven on July 28, 1871 at Denver. The last spike of the Denver - Colorado Springs line (the railroad's first) was pounded on October 21. Five days later, on the morning of October 26, the first passenger train left Denver headed for the three-month-old city of Colorado Springs. By the end of 1879 the Denver & Rio Grande had spread south to Espanola (just outside of Sante Fe), north to Kokomo, east to El Moro, and west to Gunnison. By the late 1960s the railroad was abandoned. It became the victim of more competitive standard gauge lines, truck shipping, bad weather, and apathy to keep up a steam railroad in the face of diesel power.
Fortunately there are two lines still preserved for Colorado narrow gauge fans. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge still runs between those two cities. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the Denver & Rio Grande Western (formerly the Denver & Rio Grande) attempted to find a suitable buyer for its isolated branch in the San Juan mountains. Finally on March 25, 1981, the sale of The Silverton to Charles E. Bradshaw of Orlando, Florida was completed for 2.2 million dollars.
Along with the track he received nine locomotives and all the structures, rolling stock and work equipment. To the eternal gratitude of narrow gauge fans, Mr. Bradshaw has kept his word on running the railroad as it ran at the height of the narrow gauge movement. It is an outstanding trip for rail fans.
Also in operation is the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad which runs between Chama, NM and Antonito, NM. This is a much less "formal" railroad and the entire yard is without fences. Rail-fans can literally walk around and over the track and photograph anything in sight. The yard at Chama is considered a modern day Mecca for narrow gaugers and is usually spoken of in hushed and reverent tones!
I think many modelers who are not into narrow gauge would be amazed to learn of the enormous amount of material available for narrow gauge railroading. There is a journal devoted to this aspect of the hobby, The Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette, edited by Bob Brown. It is about 100 pages per issue and is published every two months. A one year subscription is $24.00.
I have the complete set from Volume 1, Number 1 if anyone needs to look up a reference. It is a beautifully done magazine and is filled with good stuff for anyone who works in any gauge or scale.
Mike Blazek has written a series of Narrow Gauge Workbooks on the cities and yards served by the narrow gauge railroads of Colorado. He now has 14 volumes on Rico, Telluride, Dolores, Ridgway, Placerville-Dallas divide, Ophir, Brown-Vance Junction, Durango, Pandora, Sargent, Chama, Pagosa Junction, and Keeler. Every structure is detailed, and every piece of track is diagrammed right down to the location of the utility poles (Overkill? - I don't think so). A mile by mile guide to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad by Doris B. Osterwald called Cinders & Smoke describes everything of interest on that line by mile post! The history of the line I model has been written by John B. Norwood called Rio Grande Narrow Gauge. It describes the line from the time of the first white man on the Colorado plains up to its demise in the late 1960s and contains some great photographs.
Although there are many narrow gauge meetings in the country during the year, the "BIG ONE" is the National Narrow Gauge Convention held every year in the fall. This year the meeting will be at Colorado Springs, CO. The dates are September 23-26, 1998. (Their website is: http://members.aol.com/nralls/ngconv.htm ). I start looking forward to this meeting in the spring. I go to a lot of meetings during the year, but this is the best. The meeting begins at 8:00 A.M. and runs until 11:00 P. M. each day except for Saturday when it runs until midnight. The format is similar every year. The morning is devoted to clinics and milling around the manufacturer's and vender's rooms. Lunch is at noon, and the afternoon is for layout tours and viewing the modules and the contest room (don't get me started on the narrow gauge contest room - breathtaking is the only word I can think of to describe it). Dinner is at 6:00 P.M. and then clinics and the vender's rooms begin again and run to 11:00. (Overkill? - I don't think so!). It is a fabulous meeting. If anyone is interested (and you certainly don't need to be a narrow gauge enthusiast to attend) let me know. I have all the details regarding registration.
I think the thing I enjoy most about narrow gauge railroading is the "no holds barred" flavor of the hobby. Do you like mountains? You can't do better than the San Juans, or the Rockies. Do you like flat lands; the line north of Durango is flat as Lubbock, as is Silverton and Chama. Do you like water? Colorado has many lakes. Do you like interesting engines? If you have ever had the fun of watching a well running Shay, with its gears singing away and its weird vertical cylinders thrashing up and down, it will be hard to go back to diesels. The architecture for the narrow gauge period is easily modeled. Brick, stone, and wood structures were all in abundance, and anything in HO scale works perfectly.
Often one hears the old argument about modeling a prototype versus free lancing a railroad. I have seen many excellent examples of both. My own layout is fictitious. Although the engines and rolling stock are of the Denver & Rio Grande Western, and the local is indeed in Colorado, the cities, industries, and geography are all from my imagination.
Yes! There can be some trouble in paradise. If there is a single drawback to narrow gauge railroading, it is the lack of "ready to run" rolling stock and engines. I am not aware of one single piece of HOn3 rolling stock that is ready to run, or almost so, right from the box. Everything is kit form, and they are not exactly "shake the box" type kits. Personally I don't mind this, because I enjoy putting the kits together, but if you like going out and buying 10 box cars and having them running within a few days - forget it. It takes me more than one week just to get one car track-ready. The same can be said of the engines. Most all narrow gauge engines are brass imports which usually do not run well out of the box. Of course, you can buy a used one that someone else has already "shopped." Model Die Casting has come to the rescue to some extent. They make two very fine HOn3 steam locomotive kits featuring styrene body parts on a metal chassis. Both MDC engines are 2-8-0 Consolidations. Compared to brass - these are cheap! Also, there are narrow gauge diesels.
I used to think that availability of materials was a down side of narrow gauging, but not anymore. The narrow gauge market has boomed in recent years. Now I rarely have problems with obtaining any part or kit I want. However, most of this stuff is NOT in the Walther's catalog!
You have to search a little - which is actually part of the fun. I always bring a long shopping list with me to the Narrow Gauge Convention for each yearly meeting.
I was attending a medical meeting in New Orleans several years ago when I happened into a hobby shop near the French Quarter. There I purchased a copy of Malcolm Furlow's book San Juan Central - HO Narrow Gauge Railroad You Can Build. This proved to be a great book for me because, prior to this, I had really been an armchair modeler with a few structures to my credit but no layout. Malcolm's book (this was before he became a famous Sante Fe artist) assumes you have never built a layout before and goes through it all step by step in great detail. This was exactly what I needed. Shortly thereafter I attended my first Narrow Gauge Convention in Durango - and I was hooked.
I have really enjoyed my experience with narrow gauge modeling. Anyone could indulge in this part of the hobby, by either starting a layout devoted to the gauge, or adding a short line to an already existing layout. Logging and mining were extremely big narrow gauge industries, and either could be added to an existing layout as a branch line.
Bring me men to match my mountains,
Bring me men to match my plains,
Men with empires in their purpose
And new eras in their brains
Sam Foss
Feb.
2 - Meeting 7:30 Highland Baptist Activity Center
9 - 7:00 Hand-laying track and turnout SIG
17 - 7:30 Executive Committee
21,22 - Railroad Day - TTU Museum
Mar.
2 - Meeting 7:30 Highland Baptist Activity Center
16-20 - Godeke library setup
April
? - Layout Tour
July
20-26 - NMRA Convention, K.C. MO
Sept
23-26 - Narrow Gauge Convention, Co. Spgs. CO
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