RIP George Sumner 4/10/1937 — 26/01/2018

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George Sumner in 2011 when he was awarded his life membership certificate by Tony Gray.

Paul Webb phoned me yesterday to let me know the sad news that George Sumner passed away in hospital on Friday night (26th January 2018).

George was one of the longest continuous members of the club having joined in 1983 . He was awarded life membership in 2011: Life membership for George Sumner

Update (2nd Feb): George’s funeral will be held next Friday (9th Feb) at 10am at Bowra & O’Dea Cannington (corner of George St West and Albany Hwy): https://bowraodea.com.au/notice/29217/

Model Train collection worth ‘millions’ donated to Ipswich museum

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PHOTO: A Bockholt model of a JA Maffei Munchen 96 class freight locomotive. (ABC News: Alyssa Betts)

A secret collection of model trains that needed its own house in southern New South Wales and came with a staff bound by confidentiality agreements is being documented at the Workshops Rail Museum, west of Brisbane. Read the full story on ABC News.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016–12-28/model-train-collection-worth-‘millions’-donated-to/8151582

Merry Christmas!

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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.

How Fast Is That Train?

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Accutrak II Speedometer

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.

Accutrack II speedometer in action

Thanks Pete!

 

Matt & Kim to the Rescue

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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.

AGM Results

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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.