STAYING ON TRACKThe Newsletter of the Lubbock Model Railroad Association MAY 2003SCALE VS GAUGE
This is probably preaching to the choir, but scale and gauge are different. There is an excellent web site maintained by Ross Crain at www.spec2000.net/modeltrains.htm where you can find more than you ever thought possible about the statistics regarding the various scale/gauge combinations. Click on "RR Scale /Gauge Encyclopedia." He must have done it on an Excel spreadsheet. Very impressive.NEW AUCTION SITE
I recently receive an e-mail from Wiseman Model Services. It seems he has set up an auction site called TrainBid which has nothing to do with E-Bay. His launch date is set for May 1, 2003. His mail states that this will be the railroader's ultimate tool for buying and selling with confidence and ease. He states his listing pages will be easy to read and easy to use. His auction categories include large scale (live steam), G, HO, N, O, S, videos, full size prototypes, Lionel, toy trains, railroadiana, books and magazines. He advertises low fees. His take is 4% on items up to $24.99, 2.25% on items form $25 to $999.99 and 1.5% on items above $1000. His web site is www.trainbid.com . Check it out.I have no financial interest in his site or his business.
NEW MEETING TIME
Randel wants everyone to know that the meeting time for the May meeting is 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. That may give us more time to work on the modules. As in April, we will be working on the ground cover of the modules, so please bring some scenery material. We got a lot done last meeting, but the scenery has suffered the ravages of time and a lot of it is actually missing.CONVENTION HOTEL - LOST AND FOUND
Some of you may already have heard that we "lost" lost our convention hotel at the Sheraton Four Points. The hotel was sold recently and they are going to be closing portions of the hotel for remolding this summer. They could not hold our convention in June. However, the Holiday Inn, Park Plaza on the south loop has stepped up and is going to take over for the Sheraton. Thanks to the efforts of Ron Kutch, they are going to match essentially all of the contract stipulations in our contract with the Sheraton. Actually, their convention facility is probably a little better and bigger than the Sheraton. Meets are scheduled in May to work out details. It seems this cloud had a silver lining.CONVENTION UPDATE
The LMRA will need bodies to work at the convention. You must be a LSR member to participate. What a great time to join the NMRA and the LSR at the same time. I can supply you with forms, but the easiest way to join is to go the NMRA web site and join on-line. You can also join the LSR at the same time.MORE WEB PAGES
While on the subject of web pages, there was an excellent listing the in April issue of Model Railroader called "Lionel's 10 favorite Web Sites" (by Lionel Strange). I have visited some of them and they are excellent. If you missed the article, here they are:1) Rensselaer Model Railroad Society
3) Joe Fugate's Siskiyou Line
5) 1/87 Vehicle & Equipment Club
6) Fallen Flags and Short Line Railroad Photos
7) Jack Burgess' Yosemite Valley RR
8) RailServe The Internet Railroad Directory
9) Kadee
HOMASOTE REVISITED
Some years ago I wrote an article about Homasote, that mysterious hard-to-find material that everybody keeps talking about for roadbed. In the April issue of the NMRA bulletin appears the following:If you've ever built a model railroad, chances are the brand name Homasote is familiar to you. It' the stuff many of us use for sub-roadbed and sometimes even the roadbed itself. But what is it exactly and how do they make it? Attendees of the Mid eastern Region's fall convention got to find out. According to an article by Mike McNamara in the region's publication, the Local, the folks at the Homasote Company opened their doors to conventioneers fo a tour. The company is located in Trenton, New Jersey and was founded in 1909. Today it is a $30 million public company that produces sound-deadening materials, concrete expansion joints, fabric-covered office partitions and of course the 4' x 8' sheets of Homasote board we model railroaders know and love.
Now to the answers to the questions we started with. Homasote is made primarily from recycled newspaper. In fact, trash trucks bring curbside pickups directly to the plant form a three-county area in New Jersey. But how do they make it? First workers separate cardboard and other trash form the newspapers. The newsprint is then loaded into huge vats that resemble very, very large kitchen blenders (imagine one that's twenty feet deep with six-foot blades.) Water is added, and then the "blenders" are turned on. The resulting mixture is filtered for impurities, then a copper-based chemical and paraffin are added. Next, the solution is dumped into molds, and most of the water is pressed out. Then comes more processing in which still more water is removed, followed by "baking" in huge drying ovens. After drying, the boards are cut down to the 4' x 8' size we're familiar with. Finally the product is shipped out to appreciative model railroaders and other users (by way of building supply dealers everywhere.)
If you'd like to know more, check out their Web site at http://www.homasote.com,. The Web site also has a handy feature that allows you to find a Homasote dealer near you.
MODEL RAILROAD EXPO
The New Mexico Rail RunNers are holding their meeting this year at the Roswell Convention Center at 912 North Main Street. The dates and times are 31 May 2003 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and 1 June 2003 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Admission is $2.00 per adult and $1.00 per youth (13 - 18). Kids under 13 are admitted free. They will feature layouts from the Eddy County Model Railroad Club, Alamagordo ŠScale Train Society, Clovis Depot Railway Historical & Modeling Society and the New Mexico Rail RunNers.
HUMOR?
You know you are a Railfan when . . .You barbeque using tie butts, for that special flavor.
You refuse to cross the tracks until your favorite train has passed by.
When riding with someone who's backing into a parking space, you say, "two cars, one car, that'll do."
GRAYING AND PLAYING WITH TRAINS
Continued from the April issue.By Terry Prisitn as printed in The New York Times , Wednesday, January 15, 2003, pg. B1.
Ralph Israel, 50, the owner of Manhattan Train and Hobby, finds it sad that the hobby has lost its cachet just as the cabooses and locomotives, even the tiniest ones, look more realistic than ever. "There are a lot more stores like this one closing than opening," he said, "but at the same time, the product line has advanced remarkably and is getting better all the time."
Today, most of the engines and cars are made in China, with so much attention to detail that what looks like a tiny speck of paint on, say, a Z-scale gondola, a flat open freight car, will turn out to be actual lettering when held under a magnifying glass. Even Lionel, the Nation's oldest manufacturer of toy trains, which was one based in New York, recently moved its manufacturing operations to China.
Model trains come in various price ranges, from a $100 starter set to the $1,500 gold-and-platinum New York Central steam engine and fuel-transporting tender that Lionel issued in 2000 to commemorate its centenary.
Antique trains can cost much more.
These days, serious hobbyists are spending more than they used to on more precisely detailed replicas, an average of about $1,300 a year, said Fred Hamilton, the executive director of the Model railroad Industry Association, an organization based in Seattle that represents 150 manufactures. "The general consensus is that the hobby itself is pretty stagnant," he said, "but the number of dollars spent has increased."
About 500,000 people in North America are involved with model trains, spending more than $500 million a year, according to Model Railroader magazines, the hobby's bible.
In New York in the 1950s and 60s, a child could equip a toy railroad at stores like Sears, at the local hardware store, or at various hobby shops. Ma Webster's shop was described as the worlds largest store devoted exclusively to model railroads. Today, however the city has only a handful of hobby shops. Nationwide, the number of hobby shops selling model trains has decreased by 25 percent over the last decade, said Terry D. Thompson, Model Railroader's editor. About 10 percent of sales are made over the internet, he said.
Until recently, Mr. Spitz had the only model train store on 45 th Street and Mr. Israel was his employee. But in 1998, after Mr. Spitz refused to give him a share of his business, Mr. Israel quite and eventually opened his own store. "Instead of a friend and partner," Mr. Israel said of Mr. Spitz, "he now is an enemy and competitor."
To be continued . . .
WHAT IS THE TRAILING LOAD?
The weight of cars that a locomotive pulls is usually referred to as the trailing load, expressed in tons of actual weight of cars and contents.LUBBOCK MODEL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION
PO BOX 53674
LUBBOCK, TX 79453