Wishing all members and friends of the WAMRC a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!
The new public layout roster volunteering form is now on the whiteboard at the club. Please make sure you drop in to the club before mid-January and put your name down for your preferred dates. I’ve also added a second sheet where you can specify specific dates (or ranges of dates) where you know you will not be available.
New member Pete Wright brought along his latest acquisition on Wednesday night to demonstrate to other members: an Accutrack II Speedometer from Sprog DCC. It’s quite a neat little self contained unit, battery powered and self supporting with a perspex ‘tunnel’ for the train to run through.
It supports multiple scales [US‑N (1:160), UK‑N (1:148), US-HO (1:87.1) and UK-OO (1:76.2)] and the speed display can be in miles-per-hour or kilometers-per-hour. The tunnel is quite wide and tall — big enough for double N‑gauge track, or a single HO line with double stack containers.
Speed sensing is done using infra-red sensors — an LED and diode at each end of the unit pick up the train as it traverses the tunnel by breaking the reflected beam off the white card on the far side of the tunnel. Some quick testing showed a little variation in repeated passes of a light loco through the tunnel at a constant speed — but this may have been due to variations in the speed of the loco itself.
Thanks Pete!
Be sure to watch Matt & Kim to the Rescue at 7pm on Channel 9 this coming Sunday night! The WAMRC and Railway Museum feature in this episode of the locally produced TV show where a family with 2 sons with special needs enjoy time away from their home while it gets a full makeover.
Special thanks to WAMRC members Roger Winfield and Don Finlayson for manning the model railway at short notice a few weeks ago when this episode was filmed.
The AGM was held last night and was well attended by the membership.
The President’s report highlighted just how much has been achieved by the club over the past year — and the Treasurer’s report highlighted just how much it has cost us! 🙂
The committee ballot was short-circuited by Tony Gray withdrawing his nomination during the meeting and all members of the new committee were elected unopposed. This is the first time in many, many years that Tony has not been on the committee in one form or another!
Finally, Paul Webb was awarded the honour of ‘Clubman of the Year’ in recognition of his efforts with the new public layout and getting the junior affiliate program up and running.
Visitors to the club will notice the N‑Scale layout is becoming taller than it is deep!
Garry has always had a vision for the layout of being very mountainous and now we are starting to see just how mountainous he means.
Garry building the N‑scale mountain — watched by Tony and Graham
The mountain is made of very light construction so it can be easily removed if required.
The mountain base.
With the mountain top in place.
In other recent club activities, Keith is busy laying a road on the Thomas layer of the new public layout.
Reserve the date: Sunday 9th October 2016
Sadly, long time WAMRC member Ian Rourke passed away just before Christmas last year after a long battle with illness. Fellow WAMRC member Norm Chapple presented a moving eulogy at his funeral, and with the permission of Ian’s family and Norm we have been allowed to reproduce it on Ian’s memorial page.
Three years ago (to the day!) the simple shade-cloth patio protecting a portion of the outdoor area at the club was destroyed in a storm. Since then we have been trying to figure out a way to replace it.
The original was built by our senior club members over a long period of time using salvaged and second-hand materials. There were two problems with adopting this approach again: 1) Clearly cobbling something together using second hand materials isn’t strong enough to stand up to storms and 2) our senior members are now too senior to contemplate this sort of activity, and our less senior members either don’t have the necessary skills or time to be able to contemplate it.
We applied to Lotterywest for a grant to build a new patio and yesterday we were successful! We should receive the grant within a week allowing us to book a contractor to complete the work at the first opportunity.
A big thank-you to our President, John Kinson who was the driving force behind getting quotes, completing the mountain of paperwork and liaising with Lotterywest.
The WAMRC featured in a story on Today Tonight last night. Watch the full story in the clip above.
(repeat of a previous post — but now less than a week away!)
RAIL HERITAGE WA presents
Where? The Railway Museum, 136 Railway Parade, Bassendean
When? Sunday 11 October 2015, 10 am to 5 pm
Swap meet — many stalls — new & pre-owned — Model trains, books, railwayana
All these extras, plus our normal displays — and only the standard prices — adults $9, concessions $7, children $4 (under 4 yrs free)
The Railway Museum
136 Railway Parade
Bassendean WA 6054