PIKES PEAK “N” GINEERS MODEL RAILROAD CLUB

THE RAILHEAD

October 2006
SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL
RAILROADING SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989		  

Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak “N”Gineers 2006 

October

October 7, 8, & 9: Rock Island Festival – notice change of dates
October 9: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
October 14: Club Anniversary Party will be held at the Peck’s. Time will be set when we find out how many movies everyone wants to watch.
October 20: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital

November

November 4&5: GTE show in Denver
November 13: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
November 17: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital
November 25: Swap meet
November 30 through December 3: Holiday Village event at Ft Carson – see story below.

December

December 11: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
December 15: Business & Corporate Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital

Rock Island Festival

On October 6 at 5:30 pm we will load the MTL and take it to the Rock Island engine house. We will setup that night and be ready to run trains on Saturday. The Festival will be from October 7 through the 9. The show hours are from 10 am to 4 pm daily. We will tear down after 4 pm on Monday, October 9th.

Club Anniversary Party

The club anniversary party will be on October 14th beginning at 4 pm at the Peck’s. We will be viewing one or more train movies. I have a list of about 30 to choose from. For those of you who want to run trains please bring your trains as the tracks will be clean. The Peck’s will be making a large pot of beef stew. Food items for everyone else to bring are side dishes or deserts to go with stew. Some suggestions are loaf of French bread, salads, veggie tray, snacks, cookies, and cakes, what ever you feel like. I would appreciate it if you would call and let me know what you are bringing. It helps me with planning and to let others what we are short of.

Club train show & Swap Meet

The plans are in motion to proceed with a train show. This will be contingent on weather we get enough vendors to participate. Either way I’ll get the message out by a special newsletter.

How to make “N” scale concertina wire

While the club was at the “N” scale collectors convention we were asked by a few people, how the concertina wire on the prison fence was made. So without further a due this is the process I used to make the wire.
The tool I used was one of my dissecting needles left over from high school biology class. The materials needed to make one of these are a stiff wire 3/64ths in diameter and 2 & ½ inches long, and a ¼ by 4 inches dowel. Drill a hole in one end of the dowel about 1 inch deep and tight enough to hold the wire without cracking the dowel.
I then found a spool of the thinnest wire I could find. I then started the wrapping the wire around the needle by leaving enough wire overlap the handle that I could hold with my thumb nail and did a few wraps until the wire would no longer turn on the needle.


I kept the wire tight and by turning the needle I fed the wire onto the needle until I reached the end of the needle. I would cut this off and start the next piece. After I made a few of these I trimmed off the excess wire and started stretching the wire out in short sections. I kept doing this until it looked the way I wanted.

Next month there will be an article on how to make chain link fence and materials needed.

September 10,2006 – Combined Picnic

On September 10, 2006 the DANS & PPNG Model Railroad Clubs met at Palmer Lake for the annual combined picnic. We were setting up at the lone picnic table when it was discovered that the pavilion was not reserved for that day. We quickly moved everything over to the pavilion  and set up there. Now what is a picnic without forgetting something important! Yes we forgot small items such as charcoal lighter and horseshoes. These setbacks did not hinder our resolve to have a good time. We did have trains this day and we saw some new paint schemes and lettering.
BNSF has added speed lettering to their locos, coal cars, and boxcars. There was a mixed freight pulled by an unusual consist of locos. The first loco was a blue and yellow Santa Fe followed by a UP loco and that was followed by a green & black Burlington mule. What a great day for watching trains.






Holiday Village event at Ft Carson

The club has been invited to setup the MTL at Ft Carson’s Holiday Village event. This will be a new show for us maybe one we can do each year. The event is from November 30 to December 3. This is a Thursday through Sunday show. The hours for Thursday & Friday are from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm. Hours for Saturday & Sunday are from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm. When I receive the setup date and time I’ll get the word out.

Palmer Lake Festival

We were given a weeks notice to setup at the Palmer Lake Festival and we had to turn it down. Lester Coburn the club’s Superintendent received another call from them stating that the show has been postponed to sometime next spring. He stated that we may be interested with more warning.