STAYING ON
TRACK
The Newsletter of the Lubbock Model Railroad Association June 2003
SARS
From Ron Warner
BEJING, China - Railway authorities have installed thermal scanners at some railroad stations to check passengers for fevers and keep the disease from spreading over their vast rail network. The number of SARS deaths worldwide rose yesterday (May 24, 2003) to at least 588. Scientists credited quarantines for braking the chain of transmission in Hong Kong.
HERO
From Ron Warner
BANGLADESH - An 8-year-old boy named Saddam Hussein - we know the spelling is different - waved his red shirt to stop an approaching commuter train with more than 1500 university students from a possible derailment due to a broken rail. The boy was walking to school when he noticed the rail. Seeing a headlight in the distance, he pulled off his shirt, tied it to a bamboo stick, and ran down the tracks waving it as a warning.
CLINIC SCHEDULE
The June clinic will be devoted to working on and discussing the upcoming convention at the Holiday Inn Park Plaza. There is still a lot of work which needs to be done.
JUL - Homer Morrow - DCC
JUL - Ice Cream Social
AUG - Ron Warner - Slides on Montana
SEP - Jack Seay - To be announced
OCT - Al Fox - Poor man’s railroad
NOV - Garon Cagle - Structures
DEC - Xmas party and gift exchange
PASSING THROUGH
On April 30, 1900, Jonathan Luther Jones dies in a tragic train accident. He was also known as Casey Jones.
‘TRAIN MAN’ IS KEEPING TRACK
By Laura Griffin as printed in the Dallas Morning News, December 10, 2002, pg. 29A
Many of you may remember last year when Peter and I went to Dallas to visit the train display in the Children’s Hospital. We took slides and then gave a clinic on the layout. One of the questions we had was “who took care of all this stuff?” Herein the answer (ed.)
Underneath a mountain, with the constant clickety-clack of trains passing by, Felder Fitzgerald tinkers.
The 62-year-old fixes motors, shines wheels, replaces axles and makes sure nothing keeps the toy trains at Children’s Medical Center from entertaining the patients.
“They need a place where they can come and forget they’re sick for a little while,” he said. “Whatever the problem is, it’s not so bad for the moment when they’re here.”
With 1,300 feet of track, three levels, eight trains and a trolley car, the trainscape that fills the two-story entrance of Children’s is one of the largest permanent train exhibits in the country.
Maintaining it is no small job. For about 13 years, Mr. Fitzgerald, also known as the Train Man, has maintained the exhibit five days a week, three or four hours a day, and occasionally on weekends.
“I’m just a big kid myself. I love working on the trains,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, wearing a striped cap and a Children’s ID badge labeled “Engineering.”
Mr. Fitzgerald, a piano player by night, might seem an unlikely toy train engineer. But is was while on the road decades ago with his bass player that he became a train enthusiast.
“Someone had left a catalog in the hotel room and we looked at it and decided to start building train sets in his garage,” he said.
Before they knew it, he said, they were building exhibits for companies and museums all over the country.
But nothing as elaborate as the train scape at Children’s
Placing the trains at the hospital’s entrance was intentional so children wouldn’t be so scared when they came in, said Children’s president and CEO George Far.
“The idea was that we need something extraordinary to immediately let children know that this place was different and that it was for children.” Mr. Farr said. “It was to distract them from what was taking place around them.”
Mr. Fitzgerald was part of a 15-member team that worked for six months in 1989 to build the $250,000 trainscape. Trains run through the Arizona desert and the Colorado Rockies and past Pikes Peak, Mount Rushmore and the Dallas skyline.
. . . to be continued
ATTENDING YOUR FIRST LSR CONVENTION
By Chuck Lind as printed in The Marker Lamp, Volume 49, Spring 2003, pg. 8.
This is my last chance to badger ya’ all about attending the LSR convention on June 13. This article by Chuck just arrived in my mailbox and I thought is was excellent and reflects my own feeling about why these meets are so valuable and fun to attend. I have reproduced part of it here (ed.).
Attending the Regional convention is one of the main benefits of your membership. If you have never been or are on the fence trying to decide if you should go, let me explain what happens at the convention.
Registration
The first activity that you will participate in will be registering. If you have registered in advance, which hopefully you have, some smiling faces at the convention hotel will meet you. They will give you your nametag and packet of what activities are to follow. If you haven’t registered, it is never too late and these same folks will guide you through the process. After you pick up your packet be sure and look it over to see the schedule for clinic, layout tours, along with some time to visit the auction and contest room. You will see other folks studying the same material. Don’t be shy - go up and introduce yourself. I have made many lifelong friends at the LSR conventions in the past and always look forward to visiting with many of these people each year. Remember you do have something in common, a love of trains.
Company Store
Look around for a smiling face and you will find Eunice Linda. She will have the latest convention car which this year will honor John Lott. Be sure and pick one up and look at some of the past convention cars that will also be offered for sale. Maybe this year is when you start your collection of convention cars. This will be money well spent to help our region and I am sure you will not find a harder working person to give your money to.
Clinics
This is what I feel is the meat of the convention. This is where you can learn some new skills or perfect some skills you already have. Attend as many clinics as time or your backside permit. One thing I can say about our region is that we have some very knowledgeable modelers and they are more than willing to share with others. Most of the clinics will be give just once, so reviewing the schedule is a must if you want to take in as many clinics as possible.
Contest Room
In this room you will see some of the finest models, arts and crafts, and photographs in the country. Maybe its time for you to take the leap into entering the contest. As a participant in several contest, I guarantee that it will make you a better modeler and sharpen your skills. Who knows, the model you enter may go home with a ribbon.
Auction Room
If you want to meet people, just visit the silent auction. Make a couple of trips around the room and you may go home with that out-of-production model you have been looking for.
Outside Tours
All the regional conventions have some special prototype tours. These are usually an extra-fare event and something you must sign up for in advance. Look them over and if they peak your interest, by all means sign up. These events are another way to meet people with some of the same interests that you have.
Layout Tours
I can honestly say that this is the one biggest benefit of attending the convention. Many of these railroads are only open for the regional conventions. I have never failed to learn something from visiting a layout. You will find that the host is more than happy to share things about the layout with you. Taking advantage of this one item can more than make you trip worthwhile and spark you to get off dead center when you get back home.
Banquet and Awards
As many of you know, I am not one to miss
good meal. The banquet and next morning breakfast is the last place where we can sit down together and have a good meal and swap the stories of what has happened over the past year. It is where we recognize those that have helped with the region over the
past year. The contest awards are given out at that time, along with many of the “special” awards that we all look forward to. There are some special speakers as well as some of our own.
Still on the fence? Maybe its time to take that leap and make this year the year that you attend the LSR Region convention. Come, enjoy, and learn. Put out your hand and introduce yourself. You will meet some of the finest people in the hobby. If you don’t attend, you will be losing one of the biggest
benefits that we have . . . sharing a hobby that is to dear to many of us. Remember you only get out fo the hobby what you put into it.
See you at the convention.
AMEN (ed.)
LUBBOCK MODEL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION
PO BOX 53674
LUBBOCK, TX 79453