AUGUST 24, 2015 ■■■■■■■■■■■ VOLUME 35 ■■■■■■■■■■■■ NUMBER 7-8 Around the SSMRC this month. The Semaphore David N. Clinton, Editor-in-Chief CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Southeastern Massachusetts…………………. Paul Cutler, Jr. Paul Cutler III Cape Cod News………………………………….. Skip Burton Boston Globe Reporter………………………. Brendan Sheehan Boston Herald Reporter……………………… Jim South Wall Street Journal Reporter....………………. Paul Bonanno Rhode Island News………………………………. Tony Donatelli Empire State News………………………………. Dick Kozlowski “Amtrak News”…………………………….….. Russell Buck “The Chief’s Corner”…………………………. Fred Lockhart PRODUCTION STAFF Publication……………………………………….. Al Taylor Al Munn Web Page and photographer…………………... Joe Dumas Guest Contributors………………………………. Peter Palica The Semaphore is the monthly (except July) newsletter of the South Shore Model Railway Club & Museum (SSMRC) and any opinions found herein are those of the authors thereof and of the Editors and do not necessarily reflect any policies of this organization. The SSMRC, as a non-profit organization, does not endorse any position. Your comments are welcome! Please address all correspondence regarding this publication to: The Semaphore, 11 Hancock Rd., Hingham, MA 02043. ©2015 E-mail: [email protected] Club phone: 781-740-2000. Web page: www.ssmrc.org VOLUME 35 ■■■■■ NUMBER 8 ■■■■■ August 2015 CLUB OFFICERS President………………….Jack Foley BILL OF LADING Vice-President…….. …..Dan Peterson Treasurer………………....Will Baker Annual Cookout…………..4 Secretary………………. ...Dave Clinton Chief’s Corner ...... ……….3 Chief Engineer………. .. .Fred Lockhart Directors……………… ....Bill Garvey (’16) Contests ................. ….. ..3, 20 ……………………….. .Bryan Miller (‘16) ……………………… .Mike Dolan (’17) Clinic……………………....6 ……………………… ….Roger St. Peter (’17) Editor’s Notes ....... ……….16 Election Results .... ………..4 Memories .............. ………..5 The Operator ......... ….……18 On the cover: Scenes on the Railroad, Photos Potpour ri ............... .……….7. by Savery Moore. 2 FORM 19 For the drawing in October, you will find a matching contest on the Whyte system of ORDERS Steam Locomotive Wheel Arrangement. Fredric M. Whyte devised a classification AUGUST B.O.D. MEETING system to identify locomotives by the Monday, August 31st 8 p.m. arrangement of the wheels. His system was DECODER & LOCO TUNE-UP CLINIC first reported in the American Engineer and Thursday, September 3rd 8 p.m. Railroad Journal in December of 1900, SEPTEMBER BUSINESS MEETING adopted by the American Locomotive Monday, September 14th 8 p.m. Company in 1903, and became the industry- NEWSLETTER DEADLINE wide system within the next few years. Puzzle Saturday, September 26th #15-10 can be found near the end of the SEPTEMBER B.O.D. MEETING newsletter. Please make sure to put your Monday, September 28th 8 p.m. name on the puzzle before leaving it in my mailbox. You can also email your completed puzzle to me at [email protected]. Extra CONTESTS puzzles available on top of the old wood display case inside the train room. Drawing will Congratulations to Dan Peterson on winning the be held at the October Business Meeting. July’s 50/50 raffle and to “Gunny” on winning this month’s! Our RR Crossword Puzzle from Al Taylor was Fred Lockhart correctly completed by: With Labor Day only two weeks away, this is the Jim Ferris Bob Farrenkropf time for “what did we do on our summer vacation?” Fred Lockhart Ron Clough but instead, I’ll tell you what we got done around Savery Coley the club since the last Semaphore was printed. Dan Peterson Doug Buchanan First, we finished the lift-out bridge between Cedar Hill freight and the passenger terminal; it Congratulations to Savery Moore for winning was used during the July Operations and adds the draw for the Atlas “Classic” RS3 decorated another operational component. Now it is simple to for the New Haven RR! change power for a passenger train or get to the turntable to turn an observation car. The next thing that was completed was the installation of the Cedar Hill roundhouse base with nine stalls. There was some discrepancy between the angles of the molded base segments of the floor with the alignment of the bridge on the turntable. However, with some fussing (bad words) and some false starts, we finally succeeded in getting it in place. We then added five more outside “garden“ tracks for a total of fifteen tracks. The other project that was completed: Bob England changed out some detection components and re-wired the panel that shows where your train 3 is on the hidden track; yes, when the lights are on now; your train is really there. That project kept him Bryan Miller was elected with 21 votes. under the benchwork for a couple weeks. Bob has also made up new control panels to manually throw Congratulations to Bryan and thanks to all who the double slip turnouts at the entrance to the were willing to serve their Club! arrival/departure yard at Cedar Hill. Instead of having to access the turnouts on your throttle, there will be toggles to select the direction in which you Annual Club Cookout & want to proceed; LEDs on the panel will show routing to confirm you have the correct alignment. Pool Party Chip and Stan have continued to move toggles for manual mainline sidings from their temporary location to new permanent locations on the fascia. They also have been adding “kill” switches at the same time and have marked the fascia with a letter K to show their location just behind the fascia. The Scenery Committee has continued with their work on “Corner City”, across the end of the peninsula where the lift up section is--going from the city itself into Chinatown, then to more run- down residential three-deckers to an industrial area. The area really looks great and gets a lot of complements from our visitors. th As I mentioned above, we had Operations in July On Tuesday, July 28 , 22 members and guest and then a week later our Summer Open House, attended this year’s festivities, held on a with the railroad running very good for both events, perfect summer day. With temps in the high I don’t remember any major hiccups. We do 80s, the 78º pool water was so refreshing. After continue to get caught with some control issues multiple dips in the pool and sampling of the with the duplex throttles, but they seem to be tasty “appetizers”, applicant Jim Fabyan caused by low battery voltage. So just keep in mind cooked up delicious burgers and dogs, along that if your throttle starts to act up, check the with steak tips and sausages. Host Jim South battery voltage: if it is eight volts or less, change it and assistant Ron Clough also helped serve up out. That’s the best suggestion I have for that. As we go into the fall, we will continue to work off the main courses. Lots of side dishes and the “punch list” I created last spring. One major desserts rounded out the menu. As darkness project that I have been working on has been the fell, the screen was set up and Al Taylor manual toggle panels for Cedar Hill freight and showed us some great slides from the 60s and Passenger terminal turnouts, I have decided on 70s of all different Eastern railroads, but locations and sizes. The toggles have been ordered especially including his, and my, favorite: the and as soon as they arrive we will start constructing Erie-Lackawanna. Dick Kozlowski brought a and installing them. DVD of a local “live steam” club’s open house; That’s it for this month, Kevin Linagen supplied pictures he had taken of the Fore River RR during the past winter’s Fred Lockhart woes and of the motive power under repair in Chief Engineer their shop. And Barry Doland brought a DVD program he had made of a trip taken last September by four SSMRC members on The Vermonter to White River Jct. It was a great 42 members voted in the Special Election for the one-year term of Director, to fill the vacancy left by time and Mother Nature certainly cooperated. the death of Dennis Hart. Thanks, especially, to Jim and Alice for their 4 usual hospitality and for putting up with us Bill Purdie, famous master mechanic for “train geeks”, as their daughter calls us! Southern’s extensive steam excursions in 1960s Thanks to all who attended and to those who and 70s, passes away. brought “goodies” and entertainment…”a good NH officials “close to an agreement” to extend Commuter Rail to Plaistow. time was had by all!” AUGUST 2005 (10 years ago) Fletcher Granite club car introduced. Acela Express trains out of service, due to brake SEMAPHORE problems. Digitrax announces their first sound decoder. MEMORIES Kadee introduces “Whisker” coupler. Walthers purchases Life Like Product’s Toy and Hobby Division. AUGUST 2010 (5 years ago) ”Downeast Scenic RR” proposed for portion of Trackwork progressing in Cedar Hill Yard. ex-MEC Calais Branch. Electro Motive Diesel considering closing Amtrak purchases 80 new auto carriers for London, Ontario plant and returning to LaGrange, AutoTrain service, increasing “minivan” and “SUV” IL. capacity. Lobato Trestle on famed C&TS narrow gauge in MBTA ridership hits lowest level in a decade. New Mexico damaged by fire. Bellows Falls tunnel on NECR gets $2 million WP&Y narrow gauge in Alaska proposing return renovation to improve clearances for autoracks of freight service. GE Transportation “sold out” for year of NS Corp. negotiates with Tennessee Valley production, with 850 loco deliveries, 2nd biggest Railroad Museum for operation of “21st Century year, compared to 900 delivered in 1999. Steam”. First time in 16 years NS considers steam Sountraxx forms “Blackstone Models”, new line of operation. R-T-R Hon3 locos and rolling stock. Crews begin work on $35 million upgrade of Guilford installs welded rail through Hoosac tracks for extension of Downeaster to Brunswick, Tunnel, lifting 10 MPH speed restriction.