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March Telltales 2014 Newsletter of the Boulder Model Railroad Club “Rubbles Depot,” a plaster kit by Thomas Yorke, dominates this scene from Jack Rummel’s former layout, but glimpses of other railroad -owned structures fill the background. Coincidentally, this month’s contest theme is “Railroad-Owned Structures,” so why not bring in a depot, roundhouse, water tower, bridge, etc. and enter it? Our clinician is our own Jerry Gilland , who will demonstrate how to create custom parts from etched brass, so join us Thursday, March 20th at the Louisville (Tri -City) Elks Lodge, 525 Main Street in Louisville . Fellowship hour begins at 5:30 PM , dinner will start at 6:00 PM , followed by the meeting at 7:00 PM . Come and share in the camaraderie! (Photo by Jack Rummel. .) x EDITORIAL It’s a wonder I developed any interest in trains at all. The opportunity was certainly there, for I grew up in Tacoma, WA, surrounded by GN, NP and UP steam locos and CMStP&P electrics. Yet, my initial exposure got off to a bad start. When I was about six years old, a family friend with freight yard connections took me to the Tacoma Yards for a short ride in the cab of a steamer. It was huge, noisy and hot and I was so frightened that the ride was called off, much to everyone’s embarrassment. Despite all of those historic behemoths being close by – and now long gone – I never went back to the yards. Later, while in junior high school, my mother determined that I should have a hobby and suggested that we visit the local hobby store. After much exploring and indecision, I came away with a kit for a Varney caboose and a tube of Testor’s cement. The end result was a disaster, with traces of the cement showing everywhere, but I discovered that I enjoyed the process and subsequently built a few more car kits. By this time, I was in high school. I had amassed several freight cars and had assembled a Varney Dockside engine, but other than owning a small power pack and some test track I had no place to run my train. My mother learned of a model train club that met on an upper floor of the Tacoma Union Station, so I packed up my train and went for a visit. The members acknowledged my presence and even let me try to run my train on their club layout, but otherwise they showed no interest in me and it was quickly obvious that my model train didn’t measure up to their standards. I attended a couple more sessions and gave up. Yet, those early experiences helped me recognize my innate love of miniature “things” and working with my hands to create them. For a career, I chose dentistry and the lure of model building never really went away. Following graduate school and three years in Germany in the Army Dental Corps, I settled in Boulder and ultimately purchased a house with a sizeable unfinished basement. Shortly after that I made my first visits to the Boulder Model Railroad Club and also to a little hole -in -the -wall on 15 th Street in Denver called Caboose Hobbies. Once again, the train club acknowledged my presence but showed little interest in me until I entered a few models in their monthly contests and actually won a ribbon or two. Slowly, I made a few friends, volunteered for club activities and began to learn new modeling skills by picking the brains of others. It’s been an enjoyable association over the years and I hope I’ve given back to the club in equal measure to what I’ve received in friendship and guidance. And I’m really glad that I came out of that Tacoma hobby shop with a caboose kit instead of a kite or a book on stamp collecting or a butterfly net. X —Jack Rummel, Editor E Telltales Official publication of the Boulder Model Railroad Club, P.O. Box 1851, Boulder, CO 80306. The BMRC meets on the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm at the Tri -City (Louisville) Elks Club, 525 Main St., Louisville, CO.. We are on the Internet at: <http://www.bouldermodelrailroadclub.org>. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2014 Officers President - Jerry Bengtson — Vice -President - Dave Ennis — Secretary - Jack Curl — Treasurer - Chad Horner — Past President - Joe Baldwin — - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Submissions The TELLTALES welcomes articles, art, cartoons, puzzles, classifieds, l workshop hints and other model railroading related materials. Mail or e- mail all contributions and/or changes of address to: Jack Rummel, TELLTALES Editor 3827 Doral Drive, Longmont, CO 80503 e [email protected] 2 President’s Message: On the Mainline Our next meeting is March 20th at 7:00pm. We are having our quarterly swap meet during the March meeting. Thanks to Alain Rigaud from Caboose Hobbies, for his clinic on the latest scenery techniques. I always learn something new to try. For those in our club who don’t know, there is a FREE online model railroad magazine, “Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine.” The web link is <http:// mrhmag.com/>. You can read the magazine online or download the magazine to read on your computer, tablet, or phone. Plus they have online forums to discuss model railroad techniques. It is an outstanding magazine. It is well worth your time to read the magazine. And all the back issues are available to read and download. One item they discussed recently is one that I have discussed with model railroaders through out the years. Intimidated or inspired? We see outstanding modeling from George Sellios of Fine Scale Miniatures; our own Doug Wright with his fantastic modeling of structures and scenery on his layout (picture below); Jerry Gilland with his great scratch building skills. When you see their work, are you inspired or intimidated? Does seeing their work cause you to strive to improve yourself? Or do you look at their modeling and say “I can never do that” and give up? I’ve always been inspired by the great modeling of others. I am not an artist. I am very technical and a lot of model railroading is an art form. Even though I don’t think I can ever build models or layouts as good looking as their work, it gives me a standard to try and reach. And maybe I will surprise myself and be able to build some great models. Reach out to those who have skills you want to have. We have many people in our club who are more than happy to help you learn or improve techniques to help you build the layout you want to have. Some of us are good at certain parts of the hobby and are reluctant to venture outside our comfort zone and try something new that we are not comfortable doing. I challenge you to try new things. And if you fail, try again. I have discarded things I have built that I was not happy with. And then tried again. And sometimes again. We can all improve ourselves and make the hobby even more enjoyable. Being new to the club is a plus! Your new ideas and influence will prove to be invaluable to yourself as well as to our common cause, the Boulder Model Railroad Club. Reach out to others with your skills and help them to improve their techniques. We are members of the BMRC to learn and to help others learn. The BMRC has a PayPal® account as an alternative method of collecting dues and other charges. You can now pay your dues on our club website via PayPal. You will need to have an ID to our website at <http://www.bmrc.info> and a PayPal ID. Both items are easy to set up. Log on, go to User Menu and click on “Pay my dues” and make your selections. Help Wanted Layout Tour Coordinator —The primary responsibility of the Layout Tour Coordinator is to assist the Vice President in securing, coordinating and publishing layout tours throughout the year. In addition to BMRC members, there are several sources of layout tours including the Northern Colorado Model RR Club and the Denver Garden Railway club. And, as done with clinics, BMRC should be ready to have these other clubs included in BMRC layout tours. Maintaining a list of the layouts visited each year is another responsibility. ———Jerry—Jerry Bengtson “A girl phoned me and said, ’Come on over. There’s nobody home.’ I went over. Nobody was home!” —Rodney Dangerfield 3 20 years ago, more Tier II : First place: Clif Korlaske , Run Down Shed or less Second place: Everett Rowe, Olsen Contributed by Bob Uhr Feeds Third place: Jack Rummel , Car Dealership The club financial balance as of March th X 13 was $5,625.54. ACTUAL SIGNS SEEN IN THE USA! On a display of ‘I Love You’ Valentine cards: "Now available in multi-packs!” The Ides of March will HO-SIG NEWS find the HO SIG taking a month off from meeting and working on the module layout — a rest after taking the layout to three train shows in three MARCH, 1994 months. So now the group will not meet in March Rich Virgin took this classic photo of an old but will be getting together again on April 10th, the mining structure outside of Idaho Springs. second Thursday, to begin getting the plans and Rodney Black hosted the March clinic about the layout ready to take the layout to the National scratch -building signal systems. His program Narrow Gauge Convention in Kansas City during examined the signal system designed for his the first week of September.