THE RAILHEAD
| November 2006 | SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL RAILROADING SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989 |
Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak “N”Gineers 2006
October
October 28: Module repair at Peck’ from 10 am to 2 pmNovember
November 4: Module repair at Peck’s from 10 am to 2 pmDecember
December 1st, 2nd, & 3rd: Holiday Village show at Fort Carson.January 2007
January 8: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.Mea Culpa
In the October Railhead I had the dates for the GTE show wrong. The correct dates are November 11th & 12th.
Great Train Expo
We have been confirmed to go to the GTE show in November. We will load the MTL around noon-to-noon thirty. We will eat lunch before we leave town and then head to Denver. See you there.
Swap Meet
The swap meet for this year has been cancelled. We had not heard anything from any of the vendors so it was decided to cancel the show. It was brought up at the business meeting to have one in 2007. If we start now we can plan for the show and hopefully a better turn out.
Fort Carson Holliday Village Event
We have been invited to attend the Holiday Village Event at Fort Carson. We have a meeting to look at the site on October 26th. We will try to answer all their questions as well as ours. This should be a great event for all our troops and their families. Hours for the show are Thursday November 30 and Friday December 1st are 5 pm to 8:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday December 2nd & 3rd, 12 pm to 5 pm.
November Business Meeting
It’s that time of year again. At the business meeting nominations for officers for 2007 will be made. We need as many members as possible to attend. Remember that this is your club If you want the club to better represent you; you need to nominate and elect the people that will take this club in the direction you want.
Calendar of events for 2007
Part of the business meeting will be to work on the events calendar for 2007. I have been asked to add this to the newsletter so we can start getting events planned and put on the calendar. Some suggestions are to do one show a month. Start the clinics again and get them scheduled. We need your input on what types of clinics you are interested in. We have a lot of talented people in the club so lets use them to learn from. The club trip for 2007 may be the Alamosa to La Vita scenic Railway. Do we want to do this trip and when? Are there some day trips or weekend trips anyone may be interested in. Are there other train related events members are interested in? Maybe do some layout tours! Bring your ideas and suggestions to the business meeting so we can start work on scheduling.
September 23, 2006 – run at Joe’s
Joe had everyone over to run trains and see the work he had done on his “G” scale layout. He was also doing work on the “N” scale layout but we could run trains on both layouts.
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| Rockwork & weeds add to scene. |
Shrubs starting to appear. |
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| Work area |
Another look |
Rock Island Festival
We met at the storage unit around 5:30 pm Friday evening. Loaded the MTL and headed for the Rock Island roundhouse. We were informed earlier that we would be at a different location and would need to make the layout smaller. We found that we would be at door # 1 instead of door # 2. We started off by setting up two corners and one 6’ module to see if we could do a 14’X14’ setup instead of a 12’X12’. We did the 14’X14’ design and were able to use half the yard for setup. Everything went well until we got to the east side of the layout and found that the floor rose on an angle to about 2’’ higher than the rest of the layout. We utilized the 4-inch square Masonite squares we received from the DANS club for leveling purposes. We also removed the adjustable feet from six legs and that allowed us to drop the high side down to a workable grade. We ended up making four or five track connectors to fit the new gaps. We had a few mishaps and uncoupling, but reversing cars and changing out locos took care of most of those problems. We did have a few train wrecks nothing spectacular until Mike Peck’s train came apart and then rear ended itself and took out two other trains.
Best wreck of the show! 1st place carnage.Club Anniversary Party
The club celebrated its 17th anniversary on October 14th at the Peck’s house. The guests started arriving around 4 pm. Lester, Chris, Charley & Mike went to the basement so Chris could start running trains. They wanted to watch Denver & Rio Grande so I started that movie for them. Andy on the other hand having eaten was ready for a train movie. I put on The Train, staring Burt Lancaster, for him and then everyone was watching. Way to go Andy! Everyone grabbed a bowl of stew and a plate of squash and salad and headed for the family room to watch the show. When that movie was over we watched a 1973 movie called the Showdown with Dean Martin & Rock Hudson. Not a lot of train action, but a funny movie to watch. As the opening scene was going on I asked if anyone recognized the railroad. The movie was shot on the Cumbres & Toltec RR and other sites as well. Engine 484 was lettered D&RG as well as the three cars in consist. After two movies and full tummies the guests started leaving a little after 9 pm. Mary & I decided if we do this next year we’ll forget to setup the dining area and just have everyone eat in the family room again. It worked out well and everyone enjoyed themselves, especially Andy. See you all next year. |
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| Paul, Andy & Jo | Lester, Connie, Rick, & Laura |
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| Chris, Prissey, Charley, Paul, & Andy | Charley thought he could hide |