Seacoast Division Spring 2021 NMRA
Zoom Event Report
by Glenn Mitchell

 

 

The Seacoast Division of the NMRA held its Spring 2021 Zoom Event on April 17, 2021 at 10:00 am. Since Covid-19 continues to be a major health risk, especially to older people, the Seacoast Division Board of Directors had made the decision to cancel “in person” events for the foreseeable future. The BOD decided to help fill the void by holding on–line Zoom meetings

Tage Erickson, the Seacoast President, facilitated the meeting with the Zoom tool. After getting the attendees connected, through their computers or by phone, Tage gave a brief welcome. Thirty-two Seacoast members were in attendance.

One layout tour video and two presentations were given at the Spring 2021 Zoom Event.

Joe Linquata led off with the first presentation on Spray Foam Scenery. Joe described how a common item at the hardware or home improvement store can be used to create strong, durable, great looking scenery. That item, spray urethane foam insulation (Great Stuff is the brand that I am familiar with,) can be applied over a form made of metal screen material. It can be applied to create a profile that is very close to the desired shape. After curing for several hours to a full day, depending on the foam thickness, it can be shaped with a Surform Shaver or sanding block. After shaping and vacuuming, a coat of spackle is applied along with optional rock molds. From that point on, it’s ready for your preferred scenery materials. Thanks Joe for a great presentation.

Next, Dave Emery gave a presentation on scratch-building structures. Dave starts of buy using Microsoft Power Point as a design and drafting tool. Dave demonstrated some techniques that I had never seen before that allowed for precise dimensioning of objects. He also demonstrated a technique for spacing multiple objects across the length of a surface such as a wall. Dave went on to identify his preferred materials for various aspects of the construction. Overall Dave made the precise design and construction of a styrene or wood structure look easy. Great job Dave!

This event’s layout tour video took us to John Newick’s Central Maine and Aroostook Railroad. John accurately follows the prototype Maine Central and Bangor and Aroostook railroads through the state of Maine in the late ‘60s – early ‘70s in N scale. John teamed up with Bob Kotsonis who shot over four hours of video which he then edited down to 40 minutes. John and Bob did a great job of describing how the layout followed the prototypes by walking us through the many locations that John has modeled on his multi-level layout. They described how many of the structures were scratch-built of kit-bashed to recreate real prototypes. They also described John’s construction techniques and the electrical design including dual screen dispatcher station. Lastly they followed a train as it traversed the layout and described the operating system used by John at least once a month. Having been a regular operator on John’s layout for a couple of years, I was amazed at how much detail I had not noticed or was unaware of. Thanks Bob and John for a tour of one of the premier layouts in New England.


This event’s “What’s on your Workbench?” session included two presentations.
Jay Ehlen presented several photos of the progress that he has made during the Covid “lock-down.” Jay described how he made substantial progress by upgrading “bare-plywood” areas of his layout into great looking scenes. Very nice work Jay.

The second “What’s on your workbench” presentation was given by Chris Oliver. Chris continues to add scenery to his huge multi-level Donner Pass layout. He has also added several passenger trains with full lighting. These trains along with many others have pushed past the limits of his DCC power system made up of 20 Tam Valley Boosters and 40 PSX circuit breakers. Chris has designed, built, and tested his own multi-channel booster/circuit breaker boards that also provide additional status of the layout. Chris walked us through the design at a high level. He is currently evaluating the operation with the new boards. Once again, Chris is pushing the limits of what can be done with a model railroad. Simply outstanding!

I would like to thank all of the presenters and the attendees for making our Spring Zoom Event a great success and hope to see you at future events.

The Board of Directors has decided that the Seacoast Division Summer Event will be a Zoom event and will be held on July 17, 2021 at 10:00AM. The Board also decided to hold an in-person Fall Event if the Covid situation permits it. The tentative date is October 23, 2021.

Respectfully submitted,
Glenn Mitchell

 

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Early Spring President's Message 2021

 

Seacoast Division President’s Message
March 30, 2021

 

 

Hello Model Railroaders,

With the Winter of 2021 officially behind us, it appears as though warmer weather has finally started to reach all of us, here in Northern New England. I hope that this has been a productive winter for each of you, as you work on various layout or modeling projects. My helix is actually starting to take shape as I begin to lay roadbed and track on the approach from the lower level of my layout into the helix. If you have a specific project that you have been working on, I would like to ask each of you to consider sharing a few pictures along with some words with us, on our Division web site, regarding your efforts.

It is certainly great news that the Covid19 vaccination efforts have swung into high gear. By now, I am thinking that most of you have been fully vaccinated or have secured appointments to have that done. If you haven’t done so, I would highly encourage you to get vaccinated.

Board of Directors Meeting

On April 6, 2021, the Seacoast Division Board of Directors will hold our next virtual meeting. As a reminder, Seacoast Division Board of Directors meetings are open to all Seacoast Division members. If you have an issue or item where you feel the need to address the Board of Directors, or if you just want to listen in to one of the BOD meetings, please contact me and I will send you the meeting information.

One of the items the Board will be discussing is when we can safely return to holding “in-person” Quarterly Events. If you have any thoughts or opinions about this subject, please contact me prior to the BOD meetings and I will be happy to share your opinions with the Board members.

NERx Convention

As most of you are aware by now, the NER will be hosting another NERx Virtual Convention. The convention will take place on April 10 & 11, 2021, from 2 to 6 pm and 7 to 11 pm eastern time on both days. There are some great clinics and layout tours that you can experience. The schedule of events is posted on our Division web site or you can go this direct link [http://www.nerx.org/index.html#events] to get the information. Please consider attending the NERx convention.

Seacoast Division Virtual Spring Event

The Seacoast Division Virtual Spring Event will take place on Saturday, April 17, 2021. Similar to our past virtual events, we will start at 10:00 am and hopefully finish by 12:00 pm. We have 2 great clinics to present to you, one from Joe Linquata on “Creating Rigid Foam Scenery”, and the other from Dave Emery on “Designing and Laying Out Scratch Built Structures.” There will also be a video tour of John Newick’s Central Maine and Aroostook N scale layout. Additionally, we will have a “What’s On Your Workbench” session where some of you will be showing us your recent modeling efforts.

I will send out the Zoom meeting information on the day before the Event. I will also plan a “practice” Zoom session meeting for either Wednesday or Thursday evening the week prior to the Event. These practice sessions are a great way to become familiar with the Zoom log-in procedures and also are a chance to see and catch up on the latest goings-on with your train buddies that you haven’t seen for a while. We have a lot of fun at these practice sessions! Please think about joining us!

Request

I sent this out to you in my previous President’s Message and I wanted to give this one more chance before I pull it. I received this email from a fellow model railroader:

I found your email address on the Seacoast Division NMRA website. I am based in Bedford, NH and have a large collection of model train magazines. It contains a few decades of Model Railroader and others. Do you know of anyone who might be interested in such a collection? Thank you.

If there is anyone interested in this gentleman’s magazine collection, please let me know and I will provide his email address to you. Thanks for your consideration.

Division Staff Openings

Our Division Webmaster would like to step down from his duties. If you are the type of person that is very tech savvy and would be interested in running and maintaining our Division website, if you have those skills, please contact me. Thank you!

I am very happy to report that Seacoast Division member Ken Moller has volunteered to join the Faulter Fund Committee. Thank you, Ken!


That’s all I have for you at this time. Please consider writing an article for our “Switch Tower” newsletter. All of our members would love to hear from any of you regarding your model railroading efforts or adventures. Please join us at the upcoming NERx Virtual Convention and our Spring Seacoast Division Zoom Event.

Best regards,

Tage Erickson
Seacoast Division President

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