We had many beautiful models displayed again for all of us to
enjoy. We had our usual model contests, photo contest, and fun
was had by all. Thank you to *all* the participants who entered
and put on such a good show for the rest of us; we hope you
enjoyed our deep admiration and appreciation for your sharing your
beautiful work with us.
Model
Contest
As always, NMRA contests are not about winning, rather, they are about
the fun of
participating, about sharing your pride and joy in modeling with
all of us (your appreciative audience), and having fun self-inspiring
and self-challenging yourself.
Our March 2011 Model
Contest had superb models models, congratulations to our winners, and
to all of our participants in the Popular
VoteModel Contest
for March 2011:
Thank you to all who participated - we love
seeing your wonderful
models. In the end, NMRA contests are not about winning,
rather, they are about the fun of participating,
about sharing your pride and joy in modeling, and having fun
self-inspiring yourself. We all love to see your pride and joys, and
you are all winners for participating. Thank You to *all*, you put on a
great show and inspired the rest of us. We hope you enjoyed
our admiration of your work.
More great N scale! Gordon
Searle's Southern Pacific PA2 #6037 work in progress. This
is a Kato N scale model originally manufactured in *1970* - tells you
how good
Kato was back then 41 years ago :-) :
We also had Large Scale!
Bill Swindell's proto-lanced Railtruck with full operational
sound:
More great inspiration:
Howard Lloyd's "Simple Structures" : epitome of elegance in
model-building, from article published in Model Railroader in July 1999
:
Visiting from Redwood Division was PCR Contest Chairman-to-be Guiseppe Aymar and
his HO UP SD60M:
Thx, all, for sharing and inspiring us, and for your
participation.
Participate by bringing a model - it's
simply
for the fun and joy of it all! Come on out in June
2011 and share with us something that you would like us to see - we look forward to it!
Coast
Division Model Contest and Show and Tell Chair: John Sing
We had our Clinicsand Model Railroad Roundtable as we do
at every Coast Division meet. This time, we were fortunate
to have:
1) Southern Pacific Slim Princess
Narrow Gauge
presented by: Matthew Buck
Matthew Buck gave us a 1 hour preview of his full 3 part clinic
on the SP's Narrow Gauge at X2011 West NMRA Nationals in Sacramento
- if you are there, don't miss it!
Matthew is a fan and has a ton of expertise on the Southern Pacific's
narrow gauge line through the Owens Valley. He gave us a
entertaining clinic on topics including:
Route and history of
the rails: history of the road starting with the first rails laid by
the Carson and Colorado up to the abandonment of the route by the
Southern Pacific
Key historical
influences of the area and decisions made by the officers of the road
Geography and
topography and changes of route throughout the life of the 80 year road
Places
and Industries along the Way,operation and maintenance of the road
Hows and whys
of
industrial comings and goings
A
chronological
discovery of each of the towns and significant places along the right
of way
Daily
operations
throughout the life of the road will be understood.
Equipment and
rolling stock of the line, from the locomotive back to the caboose
Why the road
was
stocked with the cars and engines it had
History of
cars from
origin to scrapped
Matthew is an accomplished modeler
as well, among other recent awards, at O Scale West
2011 Model Contest Matthew was the 1st Place Winner - Caboose
for his Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Caboose #1:
Thank you very much, Matthew, and we're
looking forward to seeing you present again at a future Coast Division
Meet :-)
Bill Allen of Woodside, California
and member of the Bay Area
Garden Railway
Society (BAGRS), gave us a clinic on his entry into Garden
Railroading.
Bill told us all about how he got into Garden Railroading, lessons
learned along the way, and most of all, all about the FUN of
Railroading in the Garden.
Here's Bill looking very serious while he's having a ball of fun
:-):
3) And of course, our ever popular Model
Railroad Roundtable, moderated by Jerry Littlefield
Got an idea for a clinic?
Want to see what's coming up? Contact the Coast Division
Clinics chair: John
Marshall
Thanks
again to all who participated, and we look forward to seeing you at
Model Contest and Show and Tell in upcoming Meets. Bring
something that you would like share - a model(s), display about your
current project, a work in progress, it's up to you, as any category is
always welcome for Show and Tell. We love to see what
you're up to!
Here are our March 2011 2010 Allen Fenton Switching Contest results.
Winners in the Brakeperson category (5 car problem)!
First Place
Second Place
Third Place
Heinz Brinks 5:17
Eugene Brichacek 9:41
Jim Smyrak 13:41
Our winners in the Senior Brakeperson category (6 car problem)!
First Place
Second Place
Third Place
Tom Van
Horn 5:17
Tom Crawford 5:32
Steve Williams 5:39
A special thanks to our Coast Division Switching Contest
Chair: Steve Peters, who
keeps the
Allen Fenton Timesaver
switching puzzle running smoothly
and staffs the TimeSaver for us. Thx, Steve!
Here's a picture of
Steve:
Thanks to all
who participated, it's a blast. Remember... it's not about winning, it's about you and your switching. You
have to give it a try :-).
What is the Timesaver
? (click below to find out!)
It is a fun, devilish little switching puzzle devised by the late,
great model railroader, John
Allen.
Click on these links above to learn more about the Timesaver,
about John Allen, or his world famous HO Gorre & Daphetid
model railroad, which inspired an entire generation of model
railroaders worldwide. John Allen lived in Monterey,
California, and was a long time member of the Coast Division until his
passing in 1973.
Results of the
March 2011 Photo Contest : (Congratulations to
all who participated!)
The theme was: "Railroad Structures".
There were many artistic, noteworthy, and creative
entries, and every one is worthy of award and mention.
Thank you to all who brought your photo to share, we all love seeing
your work.
Click on any of the thumbnails below to see a larger copy of the Photo
Contest Entry. By Popular
Vote, the Photo Contest winners were:
First Place
Second Place (tie)
Second Place (tie)
"Coal and Water at Ely, Nevada" by Kenneth Martin
"Speeder at Water Tank" by Mike Raposo
"Old and New"
by
Eugene Brichacek
We had a superb palette of Photo Contest entries, all of them
interesting, artistic, and just excellent.
Thank you to *all* who
participated. We hope you enjoyed a
few minutes of fame and the ongoing admiration, of your fellow NMRA
modellers and guests.
Bring a photo to the next Meet's Photo Contest!
Click here to see the upcoming
categories.
Here's a picture of Coast Division Photo Contest Chair: Keith Wandry:
Coast Division Model Contest categories are rotated
annually according to the following schedule (i.e. we always have the
same categories as shown below, every March, June, September and
December). The categories for the upcoming
Coast Division Model Contest Meets are:
June
2011: Structure, Display/Diorama,
Self-Propelled Cars & Traction
September
2011: Steam Locomotive, Diesel & Other
Locomotives, Passenger Car
December
2011: "Favorite Model" (open to any
category)
March
2012: Caboose,
Freight Car, Maintenance of Way
Results
are determined by Popular Vote.
Arrive and enter early to get more votes!
Optional: NMRA Judging is available at the Coast Division
Meet to any Model Contest participant for:
- Achievement Program Merit Points
- Regional/National Contest entry preparation 'dry-run' and friendly
expert advice
- Or, just to see how you would have done (smile!)
Please contact the current Coast Division Model Contest Chair, John Sing, or the current
Achievement Program chair Kermit Paul, if you would to have your model
judged at the upcoming meet.
All photos should be matted (inexpensive,
resusable mattes can be had at most art supply stores) and should be
between 5x7 and 11x14 in size. Hope to see your work there!
Results are determined by Popular Vote. Bring your photos early to get
the early votes.
One of the great things about our
Meets is sharing information and kibitzing about all things related to
trains. It's the People
that make our hobby as much fun as it is.
One of the favorite Coast Division Meet activities is treasure hunting
at the Auction tables.
You will find some of the most unusual and hard to find items at our
quartery Coast Division auction: This HO
item was auctioned off, what a find for someone!:
Our thanks to our many Coast Division volunteers, we could
not do any of this without each and every one of you. Volunteers
- thank you! You
can see our current volunteers on the Coast Division Call Boardby clicking
here.
Once again, provided the crowd-pleasing fare of Polish hot dogs,
drinks,
snacks and chili for lunch for us, as they have for many meets now.
Thanks for feeding us so well!!!!
Steve Wesolowski, our Publicity
Chair (and super helper on Model Contest) recently said it well for all
of us:
"So many people happily volunteer to
make our Coast Division Quarterly Meetings possible. In
appreciation, whenever you have the chance, please remember to thank
someone else in our Division who in whatever way,
helps to make our Coast Division Meets the success they are today."
Thank you, Steve, well said. :-)
Invite a new friend to come to the next Meet, and see what we're all
about!
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This HO
item was auctioned off, what a find for someone!: 
