ETMRC  RAILNEWS

December 2015 http://etmrc.org

Working on the Railroad – Contrary to how it looks, Bob A was NOT practicing pink foam twirling, but he is busily reworking the scenery on the southeast corner of the museum peninsula to reconcile recent track changes with the original scenery. He still has a way to go. Note that the former deep rock cut on the narrow gauge line to the bridge and tunnel is gone.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Bob A’s scenery work is the most visible changes made to the main HO layout. Much has been done to improve operational reliability, but, with the next open house less than two months away, his efforts will be among the first things visitors (if we get any) will see. And perhaps, we need some more effort with scenery. Others are working to construct new buildings for the city, which may or may not be mostly done before the Plano Show open house in mid-January. And if new buildings get mostly done, there is still acres of pink foam that need something. Elsewhere, there is much more that needs to be worked on: the replacement turnout in Price yard still needs painting and ballasting. As reported in last month’s Railnews, the scenery in the southeast corner of the layout urgently needs to be overhauled, since track repairs are mostly complete. All we need is someone to do it. Scenery is different than most other club projects: it really doesn’t need 2 x 4s, miles of wire, or heavy tools and machinery. It just needs to be done.

On a less whiney note, rework to new room 2 is progressing. The work on the floor drains is nearly finished; only a little more plumbing needs to be finished; and permanent wiring drops installed before the rest of the ceiling can be installed. This work has largely been the main focus of President Paul and Rob D, with contributions of other members when needed. Both have contributed long hours and extra work days, and unfortunately, all the other tasks associated with the overhaul of the facilities must be carefully coordinated with them to ensure that well-meaning individual project don’t have to be redone or worse, undone, then redone.

A possible fix for the recurring problem of DCC controlled trains stopping unexpectedly and restarting may have been uncovered by Ron M. Some decoders have a resettable feature built in so that they can continue past momentary interruptions. See Ron for details. Tom McC brought a nice heavyweight passenger train and ran it mostly successfully on the club layout. It was only more or less satisfactory because he experienced several unplanned uncouplings. Some of his headend cars seemed a bit light during backup moves, but that’s an easy fix. On moving the train into Chyrokes yard, the long cars encountered some problems with kinks in the curve leading into the yard, a situation that was worse because the train was backing through the offending curves. It’s too bad that the only access to the big passenger station is only possible with back-up moves.

Men at work — Rob D (left) and Paul F present their good sides to Bob T’s camera while working on floor drains in New Room 2. The task was to cut the floor concrete away from some old drain pipe drains so they could be capped and buried. The fearsome twosome finished the task, and the pipes now need only to be capped and reburied.

MEETINGS

The official weekly club work sessions are 9:00 to noon on Saturdays. The business meeting is the first Saturday of the month at sort of the same time. Some members are often present for work sessions, or just plain lollygagging on Wednesday and Friday mornings, about the same time as the Saturday schedule. but lately this has become a bit uncertain. If you want to come on a weekday morning and don’t have a key., it is best to call someone For those not yet retired, a group meets starting about 7:00 pm on Tuesday evenings for a couple of hours. Many meet at 8:00 Saturday mornings at McKay’s Restaurant on 1113 Main Street, Commerce for breakfast, and extend an invitation to any who care to join them.

mmmmm BUSINESS MEETING

The next scheduled business meeting is 9:00 am, Saturday, December 5, 2015.

November BUSINESS MEETING SUMMARY

Not from Bob Erwin, Secretary

MEETING CALLED TO ORDER: 9:30 am, December 6, 2015

PRESENT: Ron M, Tom B, Paul F, Bob T, Bob A, Rob D, LeRoy H, Jared P, Tom McC

PROXIES: None

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: Approved as published.

TREASURER'S REPORT: Submitted by Treasurer Ron M
This section is redacted

Besides the figures, Ron commented that for the second time in recent history, outstanding unpaid dues were less than $100, a cause for rejoicing. However, not wanting to be only positive, Ron also added two reminders:

1. The water in the refrigerator IS NOT free. It is supposed be $0. 50 – that’s 50 cents – per bottle. If you take one, please leave 50 cents so he can replenish the stock.

2. When you receive your NMRA membership renewal notice, give it to Ron. That’s Ron, the treasurer, so he can renew it for you. Of course, that is just if you want the club to renew it for you. If you want to take care of that yourself at your expense, you need not bother Ron.

COUNCIL MEETING REPORT: Submitted by Council Rep Paul F
Finances – The Council has $deleted in the bank against outstanding bills of about $deleted, so there is a bit of a cushion against surprises associated with the January show. To date, 227 tables for the January Plano show have been sold, about usual for this time.The stats on the Plano fall show were dismal, to the surprise of no one. The revenue from the increased table rental fees from the 219 tables covered the show’s expenses, but just barely. Attendance totaled 1900, but of this number, only 1478 were paid, the worst ever. The 2014 statistics for the fall show, the last in Ft Worth showed 1763 paid attendees – 283 more than 2015.

Perhaps more disturbing than the 2015 fall show attendance is the future. Available weekends in the fall at Plano are almost non-existent. Even the tentative date of September 17–18, 2016 is not guaranteed, and conflicts with the Temple show. The State Fair and the area Balloon Festival is a week later. Other possible show sites will not reconsidered by the council, so it looks as though the fall show is locked between a rock and a hard place.

OLD BUSINESS: Paul said that the club received $25 in donations over the course of the fall open house. Jared reported that the TAMU–C Library has installed 3–D scanning and printing capability. It can be used by students and non-students in the Commerce area with proof of residency. No one has any idea of what sort of quality might be expected from the new capability. Ron reminded the members present that we not only have work responsibilities for the January show, but also for the open house we will have to support the show. Paul noted that we usually have show–related visitors from the January show and that we need to make sure there are members present for possible visitors, especially Sunday mornings in the past.

Bob T has mostly finished revisions to the wiring plan for the N–gauge layout, which add four new circuits. Bob is ready to start building wiring subassemblies, but will wait until after the January open house to avoid clutter. The floor drains in New Room 2 have been mostly excavated by Paul and Rob. Bob A will be reworking the scenery on the middle (museum) peninsula. He plans to add foam under structure around the relocated tracks as the first item of business. LeRoy reminded him that the hot wire cutter works very well on foam and made much less dust and mess than manual cutting with a knife, which Bob prefers. A general discussion followed, but since everyone was talking and nobody was listening, there were no results to report.

NEW BUSINESS: Paul bought two gallons of paint to finish the refinishing of New Room 2. The batteries for Paul’s Black and Decker portable drills and lights are badly beaten up and need to be replaced. These are Paul’s personal tools which have borne the brunt of the everlasting projects for the ETMR and Carpentry Club, but replacement is fairly costly — about $65 each at retail. All the members present agreed that the club should cover the replacements. In the supporting discussion, Rob suggested that it might be more cost effective to review local sales to buy newer, more efficient tools, rather than to replace batteries for the well-worn existing tools. After some discussion, Rob moved that Paul be authorized to check the prices of replacement tools, and if something looks to be a practical replacement, to buy it at club expense. The motion was seconded by Tom McC and passed.

MEETING ADJOURNED: 10:25 am.

WHAT THE %*##% --?

A section to list strange happenings that really should be tracked down and fixed: Anyone? Anything?

A mishap that was repaired may have provided some relief to the ongoing challenges with the DCC operation of the main layout. Jared P snagged the power cable to the control console in the moveable monster at the west side of the city peninsula unplugging it on one end and pulling out a soldered connection at the other It took the attention of expert Bob T to find the location of broken connection on the console and some time to fix it. It worked. In fact, it worked better than before. Officially, the only difference should have been that power was restored to the controls, and little more. But Ron M discovered that not only did it work, but that the system recognized units preprogrammed on the facility in New Room 1 were instantly accepted — something that was uncertain before. Why this happened has ben the subject of conjecture ever since, but no one really knows. Anyone surprised?

INFORMATION:

The following web sites are excellent sources of supplies (1) and technical data (2). (3) Is Rob D’s blog on the Model Railroad Hobbyist website. It is updated almost daily. Two of our members also have personal web sites (4) and (5). Site (6) has some interesting photos of Commerce area railroading over the years.

1. Cyberspace World Railroad for supplies
2. http://www.geocities.com/budb3/index.html for technical data
3. http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/18644?
4. http://www.coslar.us for Ed M's personal web site
5. http://geusnet.com/~rteeter/ for Bob T's personal web site
6. www.tamu-commerce.edu/library/collections/digital for Commerce Texas photos

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

January 16 – 17, 2016 – NTCRC Plano 2 Show — (Dallas) Plano Centre

February 28, 2016 – Allen Show — probably in station along the old and mostly nonexistent former H&TC (SP) line to Denison

REGIONAL RAILROAD PROTOTYPE NEWS

This is just a sampling of that’s going on in our area, which is defined to be whatever I think interesting, so the area can be fairly large. Or not.

With the never ending political blather surrounding the 2016 presidential election, a little noticed congressional action on a move to approve even heavier semi trucks was introduced and defeated. The railroad industry was dead set against it as subsidy for long haul truckers, and the Friends of the BNSF (whoever they are) tried to mobilize the opposition. The result is summarized below.