!

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE!by Steve Bumgardner !The late fall and early winter is always a great time of the year in Prescott and for our club. This year for CAMRRC has been typical with our planned events making it wonderful. !The Christmas train event was held as usual on the first Saturday of December. It was a great success this year with over 400 people (I would actually estimate that about 400 - 500 people) who came to see what we had to show. The layout presentations by our club members were very well done once again. We even had a live steam engine running at the event! !We had another great train set that we were giving away at the event with about 250 people entering the drawing. It was won by a five year old boy from the Prescott area. The family was very happy and wanted to make sure that all of the club members were thanked. Stan Cedarleaf did send out a picture of the winner and his family. So a thank you all on their behalf. !We owe all of the club members who took their time to share trains with the general public (as well as other club members) a Big Thank You!!! We should give Stan Cedarleaf a standing ovation for the great job he did in getting everything set up and ensuring that the event went smoothly all day long. !!

!!

The club Christmas party was held on December 11th at the Prescott Resort. It was a great success with about 80 of our club members and guests attending the event. The food was great, entertainment was exceptional and all of the folks had a great time. I think it ranked as one of the best club Christmas parties I personally have been to. We need to thank those who helped for setting the event up for us at the resort. Next year we will be changing the venue of the club’s Christmas affair. I am sure that it will be a great success and that everybody attending will enjoy it. So if you were unable to be there this year make sure your calendar is clear for next year. !We once again supported the Salvation Army’s “Angel Tree”. We had six of our club members go out and shop for these needy kids. The group did an outstanding job! I think most of them went over the dollar limit that was allowed and most certainly supported more than one child. This is a very worthy thing that our club does for the kids who need a Christmas. One other real benefit is that 100% of what we give goes straight to the kids. Bonnie Rudy (BJ) was the group leader who coordinated this activity. !The club membership this year is at 84 regular members and 14 honorary. This is a very good thing for the club, it is growing! Our monthly meeting attendance has a run rate of about 40 to 45 members, a very good turnout for a club of our size. And yes, to repeat myself, I would like to see it at 95 to 100%. !

NEWSLETTER!

Central Arizona Model Railroad Club!January - March, 2014!

Our meeting format will continue to be the same for this coming year as it has been in the past year. Dan LePage will continue to organizing the ‘show & tell’ and general presentations. We have had a lot of participants during the ‘show & tell’ portion of the meetings. This has been very informative for all of the members and is always something to look forward to. Our presentation session, which follows, has also been interesting and informative. These do require preparation time and we owe all of the folks who participated a big thank you! ! From this year’s election results, the returning board members are: Steve Bumgardner, Jim Hanna, Dan LePage, Dick Gage, George Klimas, and Jack Hendrix. The new member on the board is Bonnie Rudy. I am sure she will integrate into the group and do a fine job working for and with all club members. She is replacing Pat Savage who has done a very fine job for a very long time. Thank You Pat for your service to the club! !A reminder (and a repeat) for all of us, please wear your club name tags. This is actually for all club events and meetings. Not everyone in the club knows everyone else by name. This is particularly true for our families who would be more comfortable and would like to know other club members. This is an easy way to identify our club members to them. !I am looking forward to continuing working with my fellow members in the CAMRRC and with the Board of Directors. This coming year will be full of the same great activities that we have been doing in the past. We will also be trying to set up a couple of field trips

this year for our membership. So if anyone would like volunteer to help, or to suggest trips, let me or another board member hear from you. !I hope that everyone had a wonderful Holiday season and will have a healthy New Year! !SCHEDULE!!CAMRRC regular meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month. They feature tables where you are welcome to bring items for sale and most months also feature a program. They are a also great way to get together with your fellow members. Meetings begin at 7pm at the Prescott First Lutheran Church, 231 W. Smoketree Lane off Willow Creek !January 8 - CAMRRC meeting, First Lutheran Church January 10 - 11 Gadsden Pacific Winter Swap Meet, Tucson. Go to http://www.gpdtoytrainmuseum.com/trainmeets.htm for more information January 18 Desert Division winter auction, Phoenix. For info, go to: http://www.tcadd.org February 12 - CAMRRC meeting, First Lutheran Church February 15 - CAMRC North End Layout Open Houses - see article this issue February 15 - GCMR Armory Swap Meet, Phoenix. For info, go to: http://gcmrr.org/gcmrr/Swap_Meet.html March 12 - CAMRRC meeting, First Lutheran Church !!!!!

BOARD OF DIRECTORS!!STEVE BUMGARDNER, President! 775-3184! ! ! Board Members! DAN LePAGE, Vice President!! 636-9726! ! ! GEORGE KLIMAS! 778-9249! JIM HANNA, Secretary! ! ! 778-2110! ! ! BONNIE RUDY! ! 759-8129! DICK GAGE, Treasurer! (c)802-272-1352! ! ! JACK HENDRIX! ! 445-6935! !

Website: http://trainweb.org/camrrc/!

!

“NO MODEL - SHE”!

By Mark Ziven

Early last summer my wife and I were visiting our kids in St. Paul, MN.

!

!

Not being one for sitting still, I borrowed a car and headed over to visit the “Friends of the 261”.

For those not in the know, 261 is an original Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 S-3 Northern type coal fired steam engine. She was built in 1944

PRESCOTT RESORT PHOTOS!courtesy of Loren Noyes

and put out to pasture 1954 with just 10 years of service.

She had just returned from Duluth, MN, on her inaugural run after a 15-year recertification. As it tuned out this particular day was an open house for rail fans and local area model railroad clubs. I got there just a little after noon and the crush of people was gone.

I hit the Jackpot. I was the only one there for the rest of the day! There was one of the engine crew, a volunteer machinist, and myself. That’s it!

I had four hours of one-on-one schooling on the engines’ history, operation and maintenance of this 1944 Alco steam engine. It was a boyhood dream consumed by a 70-year-old body.

I could still feel the heat radiating from boiler, it was still warm having finished her run just a

few days before. Sitting in the engineer’s seat and staring out over that long expanse of black steel boiler was quite a sight.

I could only imagine what it must be like to have your hands on the throttle of all this horsepower. I tried to imagine the feel of the sensations of the heat radiating from the boiler, the cold rush of wind whipping at your face, the jounce of this locomotive over the rails. Was I dreaming?

How did all that coal get from the tender into the boiler? How was the coal dispersed over the grates? What happens to the coal conveyor when the engine and tender are going around a curve?

How did this work, what was that valve for? Water levels, sheet height, steam pressure, terms were flying at me from all directions. How is the engine coupled to the tender? Grease this, and oil that.

Those were questions a wide-eyed 70-year-old kid asked and got hands on educated answers.

Out of the cab and through their machine shop baggage car staring at the yet to be mounted emergency red stoplight.

“Climb under here, watch your head”!

Over, under, hands on this, touching that.

Into the coach storage yard for a ground up orientation of all the smooth sided passengers cars that are part of the “Friends” consist.

Most were original Milwaukee cars and some came from other fallen flag roads. All were refurbished to meet Amtrak standards and all the cars were recently repainted in the orange, maroon and black “graffiti proof” paint reminiscent of the “50’s”. Each car was lettered “The Milwaukee Road”.

There was even a 25,000-gallon black, smooth sided auxiliary tender sitting on another track. (That will be the subject in a future article.)

Where were the most famous Super-dome and Skytop Lounge cars not viewed in the area of the engine house? Both were siting at the Amtrak station in St. Paul.

Oh, yes, my wife Evelyn and I did get an opportunity to visit those two cars, inside and out, before they were host to a group of conventioneers’ heading to Chicago.

Because of this visit, an O scale model of the 261 and her train now reside on my home layout, the “Goose Island- Western and Arizona”.

!A VISIT TO CHEYENNE, WYOMING!by Norm Delucchi

In June, we took a trip to Wyoming to enroll Barb’s grandson in school in Laramie – finally the last of the grandkids out of the house. During his orientation day, we took the short drive to Cheyenne. I wanted to see the Big Boy that is on exhibit in a local park. I heard the Union Pacific was looking at the remaining Big Boys to attempt a restoration. One look at this one and I was sure that it was

not a candidate for every running again. Whole section of metal on both the engine and tender were rusted through.

Next stop was the Cheyenne Depot Museum. The museum is located in the restored UP Cheyenne depot. The museum can be broken down into its first floor and second floor. The first floor starts with the Union Pacific’s part in building the transcontinental railroad and continues through present day. More artifacts and photos than can be absorbed are very nicely exhibited.

Little areas of the museum display various aspects of UP railroading. Some nice models, mostly O scale, show some of the engines and equipment used by the UP. What I found of great interest was the stories regarding the facilities in the Cheyenne engine facilities. Over 4000 employees worked in the steam engine area (about 15 today). This got me thinking of all the lost ‘arts’ evolved with keeping a steam engine running.

The second floor holds the Union Central & Northern Model Railroad. Those of you who read the Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette

are quite familiar the UC&N. My guess is that over 100 articles were written in the Gazette on building the UC&N (also, two books have been printed that cover the articles).

Harry Brunk built the layout in a mobile home at his home in Nebraska. Mr. Brunk’s layout

was sold, dismantled, moved, and rebuilt on the second floor baggage area of the museum. Mr. Brunk hand built nearly every item on his HOn3 layout – including locomotives, freight and passenger cars, and all structures. The volunteers, who come from as far as Denver, include Mr. Brunk, and Rick Steele of LaBelle Models, have converted the layout to DCC and are expanding the layout. All of Brunk’s

hand built locomotives are on display – the group decided not to try and convert these locomotives and to preserve the original engines. If you are on Facebook, there are many pictures of moving and installing the layout at the depot.

!GREAT NORTH END LAYOUT VISITS!by Peter Atonna

Put February 15th on your “to do” calendar. For that is the day seven CAMRRC members are opening their homes with an invitation for you to visit. From the largest to the smallest, O and HO gauge, there will be something for all members, and spouses.

Welcoming you will be:

Charlie Scardino - HO gauge John Bordenave - HO gauge Bob Sherlock - HO gauge Donn Pease - HO gauge

Marlin Benson - O gauge James Johnson - HO gauge Peter Atonna - O gauge !Layouts will be open from 1 to 4pm and I will send a map to each location the week prior to the Open Houses. !!WEATHERING WITH PAN PASTELS!by Darrell Levi !You may have seen the cover story by Tony Koester, “Weathering a Steam Locomotive in 7 Minutes,” in the November 2013 Model Railroader. I’ve done a

lot of weathering using spray cans, acrylic paints, and regular chalks, but haven’t had great success weathering locomotives. So I went to the Art Store on Sixth Street in Prescott and bought a supply of the PanPastels and the sponges with which to apply them. The PanPastel containers cost $6 or $7 each, but a little goes a long way. The colors I’ve used are Black,

Titanium White, Neutral Gray Shade, Burnt Sienna Tint, and Red Iron Oxide Shade. My first project was weathering a Roundhouse 2-6-0. Tony Koester may have weathered a loco in 7 minutes, but it took me more like 45. I am very pleased with the results which you can see in the “before” and “after” photos. I still plan to coat the wheels with Neolube to get rid of the shine without losing electrical conductivity. There are three neat things about the PanPastels. They adhere better than other chalks with which I’m familiar. They don’t

require a fixative spray. And they wash off with plain water, if you don’t like the results. !My next project was weathering an Accurail gondola. You can see what unweathered and weathered cars look like in the next photo. It takes just a few minutes to weather a freight car, and I have since weathered several more. Weathering seems to be one of those great divides in the hobby; some modelers love the used weathered appearance, and some like their cars and locos looking as if they all just came out of the wash rack. There is a half-way approach, however. !My layout runs around the walls of a 12’ x 24’ room, and for 95% of it you see only one side of locos and cars. The only place you see the other side is the

turn-back curve on the mid-room peninsula, and you have to make an effort to do so. I have a collection of the Bachmann Canadian cylindrical grain hoppers. They are so attractive I was reluctant to weather them. My solution was to weather one side only so I could have the best of both worlds. I’ve also applied this solution to decaling the many passenger cars I’ve acquired in recent years. If you have a similar layout, why decal or weather something you’ll never see? !!FROM THE CAB OF “ENGINEER DAN”!by Dan LePage

We had a good year of train shows with the portable layout at the Chino Valley Children Library, Skull Valley Ice Cream Social and the Christmas show at the Prescott Resort in

December. The Children Library was great last show had about 195 children, parents and teachers. Skull Valley was great and had a constant flow of people. !We also did the Christmas Show at the Prescott Resort and Convention Center it was a great time. I hand painted the engine Atlas Dash-8 and the passenger cars. The engine is an Atlas undercoated TMCC controlled engine and I ran it using my MTH DCS TIU, DCS handheld and TMCC Command base. The passenger cars were junk-box finds that I repainted. I had added some action items to the center of the layout. Have a great year, !SPOORWEGMUSEUM!by Norm Delucchi !On our recent trip to The Netherlands, I had the chance to revisit the Dutch National Railroad Museum (Spoorwegmuseum) in Utrecht.  I first stopped at the museum in 2003 – at that time they were in the process of closing the museum for a major renovation – only about 20% of the exhibits were available.  The museum is located in an old train

station near Utrecht.  Part of the renovation was to restore the station to the way it looked in the 19th century – including a ‘royal’ waiting room, waiting rooms for different classes of travel, and various other

rooms that the original station had.  Just to see the station restoration is worth a visit.

One section of the museum is devoted to models of various scales – three display cases show all the steam locomotives that ran on the Dutch railroads.  One of the ‘fun’ areas was the early history of steam and the first train in Holland.  You are given headsets (I choose English) you are then  taken on a journey through the earliest days of steam engines – those used in coal mines (to pump water out of the mines) in England. Next was a replica of George Stephenson’s workshop and how steam engines were first used on the rails.  You are walking through an early English village for this history lesson while the headphones tell stories about early days of steam.  The Dutch decided to build a railroad but discovered they had no one to operate the locomotive – so a British Engineer drove the first Dutch locomotive.  Excellent narrative throughout the history of early steam engines and early railroads in The Netherlands.

The equipment exhibits range from the earliest Dutch locomotives to a fully restored Orient Express Dining Car to early streetcars, a ‘royal’ coach to some modern equipment.   The day we were there, they were taking down an 18” barrel British railroad gun used in World War II. A special exhibit on railroad military equipment had just ended.  The outdoor miniature railroad was not operating due to the heavy equipment moving the military guns out of the museum.

Besides the neat trip through steam engine history, the “De Vuurproef” (fire test) is a unique interactive ride thorough railroad history. Part of the ride is a trip on

an American Western Railroad with Monument Valley. The museum is one of the 2014 recipients of a THEA (Themed Entertainment Association).  These awards are normally given to attractions at amusement parks.  Here is a quote for the 2014 awards – ‘De Vuurproef, Het Spoorwegmuseum (The Railway Museum), Utrecht, Netherlands – “successfully engages the public in a way not usually seen in museum attractions”’.  If any of you get the chance to visit The Netherlands – Utrecht is about a half-hour by train ride from Amsterdam.  Easy to get to via the excellent Dutch railroad system.  They run a shuttle train from the Utrecht Central station to the museum station (Utrecht Maliebaan).

!SCALE CRAFT!by Peter Atonna !At our November train club meet, Dick Gage brought me an “old” train car. He is in HO and had no use for it, so thought I might be interested. Well, I never turn down anything “free”. When he gave it to me it was obviously an old O scale refrigerator car. But turning it over to see if I could find a clue as to the manufacturer, I saw from the name embossed on the

frame, it was made by Scale Craft. Now, I am excited. Although I know of Scale Craft’s history in OO gauge, I had never had one of their O scale cars. So, why is this exciting to me? And why might it be of interest to folks in the tinplate as well as the scale side of the hobby? In the 1930’s, the toy train hobby was rapidly evolving. Scale modelers were growing rapidly in numbers and many new manufacturers entered the field to cater to them. Many, such as Walthers, offered their models in both scale and tinplate versions. And we all know of Lionel’s movement towards scale detailed if not size models toward the end of the decade. And the most famous of that movement was the introduction of the Scale 700E Hudson in both three rail and outside third rail. In fact many photos of O scale layouts of that era had 700E’s prominently featured (see many photos of Frank Ellison’s layout for example). !Then in 1938 Lionel introduced its direct entry into the scale market with their OO scale line, offered in both two and three rail track and trains. And the tie to Scale Craft? Although never proven, it has long been

Scale Craft and Lionel cabooses, Lionel on the right !speculated that the original photos of the OO cars in the catalog were actually Scale Craft OO cars, repainted and relettered. There are even stories that

Lionel copied Scale Craft’s dies for its four freight cars. However, if copied, the Lionel version did have some differences. ! So, now back to Scale Craft. This Chicago firm had been making O scale models throughout the 1930’s. I have two of their O scale catalogs, one from 1934 and one 1937. So looking for my new refer, there is was in both catalogs. So, I was able to verify its authenticity.

1934 Scale Craft catalog page showing my car!!Looking more closely at the car, it was not built up, but obviously a kit as the lettering was by decals and the painting done by the builder. Looking at the underside, the trucks were quite unique, being held on by a cotter pin and the bolster rotated in the side frame for equalization. The coupler is held on by a pin also. Yet, otherwise the car matches the construction of scale car kits used to this day. !But, back to Scale Craft. In addition to their “Lionel” four cars, they offered a full line of kits in OO scale. My favorite is a baggage car and coach. These are of die cast metal and are of equal in quality to the cast freight cars - and in my opinion of a quality equal to

Scale Craft die cast coach!!anything produced in the next 50 years. The doors open and the stairwell traps even fold back to let OO scale passengers climb into the car! !Other cars were more typical of the construction of the O scale freight car. Wood or stamped metal sides Scale Craft die cast coach with wood frames. But they produced a wide variety of cars and road names.

Scale craft trains with Lionel OO gauge Hudsons. !!Finally, back to my new gift. It has now a place on my display shelves as a living symbol, not only of the history of our hobby, but how so many elements of are tied together. !!!BUILD A PICNIC TABLE!by Charlie Scardino !Build picnic tables for zero cost.  All you need is a solid core sheet, glue and paint.  For my solid core sheet I used a scrap of mat board used for picture framing.  Although I did not measure it's thickness you can see from the photo that it was perfect. I bet most framing shop would happily give you a scrap.  If not, just give me a ring and plan on coming over for a piece. Wood sheets or a combination of the two would

be other options. The second image shows the dimensions I used.

THE 261 AUXILIARY TENDER!by Mark Ziven !At Cal Stewart I picked up a brass auxiliary water tender for my Milwaukee #261 steamer. The only problem was that it was lettered for the Norfolk and Western which actually ran the tender. But that did not stop me from

deciding to add a auxiliary tender to my steamer, since it will be traveling really long distances on the layout. The N&W logo was successfully removed without hurting the factory black finish. In the

prep work, a light dusting of Tamiya X1 Gloss Black covered where the N&W logo was removed. !Stan Cedarleaf sized decals from photos of the car as it sits today in St. Paul, Minn. The most

trying part of the application was getting the decals to settle around the pronounced rivets. Patience is mandatory. No rushing, no panic either. So, check out the completed work as the tender rolled for the first time this morning. !BUY-SELL!!For Sale: Pabst Beer train sign. This is the classic companion sign to the auto sign, both from 1961. Lights, but the motor is no longer working. A classic train room decor item. $195. Send me an email for photos. Peter Atonna 636-4228 or mjatonna@gmail.com

CAMRRC NEWSLETTER Peter Atonna, Editor 25375 N. Feather Mountain Rd. Paulden, AZ 86334 !!!!!!!!

One of the CAMRRC’s annual highlights is our train display setup at the Prescott Resort. Several club members bring layouts and displays to share with the public. Here is Steve Rudy putting the finishing touches on his tinplate display, ready for the folks to enjoy.