Archive for the ‘General News’ Category

This is an informal update on DMRC. As many local modelers probably know, our president, Ed Preeper, passed away at the end of July. The members are continuing with construction of a new layout that should be in running condition next year.

However, our numbers are low, and at least one member will be moving out of the area in a little while. So, a few more new members (adult: 16+) would be most welcome. Any help the Federation can give to publicizing this opportunity to modelers in Dartmouth/HRM will be appreciated.

As we do not currently have a formal organization, contact can be made with myself, or with David Stredulinsky (Stredulinskyeastlinkca). Thank you.

Title: Fredericton Model Railroaders’ 4th Annual Model Train Show
Location: Fredericton High School
Description: At the show, members of our group will operate layouts in N,
HO and O gauge. We also invite other clubs to contact us if they wish to operate
layouts at our show. The contact person would be myself at:
pbourgoinbellaliantnet Of course, we have dealers, etc.
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2011-12-03
End Time: 16:00

Sunday was a bit more relaxing.  Duane gave us a personal tour of the museum, including showing us some of the items that have not been put on display yet.  Duane is building a very impression recreation of the railroad on the south shore of Nova Scotia in “S” scale.  If you are ever in the area the museum should be a definite stop on your itinerary.

After lunch we stopped in to Chester, Nova Scotia to visit David Miller’s very impressive HO layout.  Duane has been helping David with some of the scenery and detail work on this layout.  It was impossible to see every detail in the hour or so that we were there.  Duane was continually pointing out tiny details that most people would overlook but were very important pieces of the scene.  Things like a scratch built circular saw on a sheet of plywood near a building being constructed (plus all the other usual items you would find near a building being constructed, tiny birds “flying” over the tree tops and sitting on things were some of the items.  See if you can spot more of these tiny details in the photos (below)

12►

Here are a bunch of unsorted photos from Saturday at the Convention.  Please excuse the poor ones.  I’ll sort through them and add captions tomorrow on the drive home.

12►

Here are some photos from the Meet & Greet on Friday evening sponsored by Don’s HO in Moncton. Sorry, forgot my camera in the car so only had my phone to “capture the moment”.

I’ll apologize in advance for the pictures of Derwin. It really was a great get together. Great conversation and great food (the chowder was amazing!). I’ll say his expression was due to his early (3:00am) wake-up call to drive Shelley and Ashton to catch a bus to Monteal.

Marie Rouleau said she never wins anything, but she bought a ticket on the train set during Island Rails 2009 (the MFMR Convention held on PEI last May) because the proceeds were going to a good cause.  Lo and behold her name was drawn for the train set donated by Don’s HO!

When she picked it up she told me that it would be for her grandson who lives with his parents in Germany (his father is assigned to a NATO unit there).  But he would be home for a visit during the summer and they’d give it to him then.  I asked her to give me a call so I could get a picture to share with members of the MFMR.

About a week ago I received the call and made arrangements to meet their grandson, Brandon.  His grandfather, Gil, told me that Brandon was so excited to receive the train set that they immediately had to clear the dining room table to set it up and he’d been playing with it non-stop ever since!

Apparently Brandon is about as big a train fan as they come, and he’s only 5 years old!  Instead of dinky cars and action figures he has trains of all shapes and sizes from Thomas to the Polar Express (and that’s what he calls all steam locos).  He loves coming to visit his grandparents. Gill has a model railroad in his basement that he is allowed to play with from time to time.  He also loves where he lives in Germany too, since there is a small privately owned rail yard practically in his back yard.

I invited Brandon and Gill to visit the Bayside and Tidewater before Brandon returned to Germany.  I wish I had taken some photos because he was definitely in his glory (actually I was too busy keeping up with him to take pictures!).  He couldn’t decide what he wanted to look at or which train he would like to run.  I think he ran just about every loco in the room, for a foot or two at least!

It’s encouraging to see a young person this excited by trains, and to be supported by his family.  Hopefully Brandon  settles in the Maritimes when he moves back to Canada so he can participate in the MFMR!

Scott

I’ve updated the Executives page with email addresses for the Executive (at least everyone that has one). However, for future reference their email addresses are:

PresidentMFMRca
Vice-PresidentMFMRca
SecretaryMFMRca
MembershipMFMRca
ContestsMFMRca
BranchlineMFMRca
WebMasterMFMRca

These addresses are set to forward mail to the appropriate person so that when the position changes hands it will be easy to change where the email gets sent.

Scott