Here is official notice of the March general meeting to be held in two weeks: 
General Notice — March 2010
Minutes from the January general meeting are now available on the members page.
Image: Tourist “sugar cane train” at The Big Pineapple, Woombye, Queensland, April 2008
A gallery of 23 great pictures taken at RailFest 2009 courtesy of John Kinson is now available on the galleries page, or click on this direct link: RailFest 2009 pictures
There’s some nice pictures there John!
Image: She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain…
Happy New Year everyone!
A reminder that the first meeting of the year is on Wednesday 20th January, 8pm in the club rooms. Minutes from the November meeting are now available on the members page. Also on the members page is an updated membership register and new public layout roster (Feb — Jul 2010).
See you at the club next week!
Image: BHP Locos queuing up to enter Port Headland, 15th May 2009
AMRA has kindly sent us an invite to their annual ‘Model Rail’ open day. This year there will not be any modelling competitions as they have decided that aspect is to become a biennial event (i.e. held every two years).
On exhibit this year will be a couple of new layouts, plus others that are now operational that have been in construction for some time. There will also be a sausage sizzle, other displays and workshops.
Make a note in your diary for Sunday 8th November and get along to their clubrooms to join in the fun (24 Moojebing St. Bayswater, opposite the end of Paddington St.).
Image: Mt Newman loco 5451 in the Don Rhodes Mining and Transport Museum, Port Hedland, May 2009
The June issue of the AMRA Branchline is now available: AMRA Branchline June 2009
At the general meeting on Wednesday night, two new members were accepted into the club (Simon Pegram — as a junior member, and Anthony Reeder). Welcome to the club guys! Chris Kalajzic was accepted by the membership as our new committee member and we also discussed and agreed to replace the dirty carpet in the public area with industrial vinyl, which should be a lot easier to keep clean.
Terry Kestel supplied me with a legend for his scratch built steel mill, so I have marked up a photograph of all the components (see above). Terry based his design on pictures of the Walthers Steel Mill kit that was produced in HO scale in 1996. We have been looking for one of these Walthers kits for the club for some time, but they have been out of production for a while now. Although some second hand models are sometimes available on eBay, they are usually assembled — hence shipping costs to Australia become prohibitive! I think Terry has done a terrific job, especially considering the ordinary everyday items he has build it from.
Below are some more photographs from the night — the steel mill from the other end (it is so long it is very difficult to photograph in its entirety!) , Chris K. — our new committee member, and a general shot of some of the workers and watchers — anxiously fiddling with stuff after being forced to sit still during another general meeting.
The March issue of the Rail Heritage newsletter is now available. The newsletter is interesting to us as it contains snippets of information about current museum activities.
Spotted at the club last night was the second half of Terry K.‘s scratch built steel mill — an amazing conglomeration of recycled materials — including even the super glue bottles that held the glue that holds it all together!
Also noted was the much tidier workshop area — as promised by Peter O. Click on the thumbnails below to see more detail.
We had a committee meeting last night (as we generally do two weeks ahead of a general meeting), so I didn’t get much of chance to do much else. But the new Rails Through The Bush books are now waiting at the club for those that pre-ordered. Wow — what an amazing quality publication!
The minutes from the last general meeting (January 2008) are now available on the members page. The next general meeting is in two weeks time, Wednesday 19th March, and formal notice has now been sent to all members.
Image: California State Railroad Museum, Old Sacremento, Feb. 2004