MAY 22, 2017 ■■■■■■■■■■■ VOLUME 37 ■■■■■■■■■■ NUMBER 5 A Club in Transition 3 The Semaphore David N. Clinton, Editor-in-Chief CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Southeastern Massachusetts…………………. Paul Cutler, Jr. “The Operator”………………………………… Paul Cutler III Cape Cod News………………………………….Skip Burton Boston Globe Reporter………………………. Brendan Sheehan Boston Herald Reporter……………………… Jim South Wall Street Journal Reporter....………………. Paul Bonanno, Jack Foley Rhode Island News…………………………… Tony Donatelli Empire State News…………………………… Dick Kozlowski Amtrak News……………………………. .. Rick Sutton, Russell Buck “The Chief’s Corner”……………………… . Fred Lockhart PRODUCTION STAFF Publication………………………………… ….. Al Taylor Al Munn Jim Ferris Web Page …………………..…………………… Savery Moore Club Photographer……………………………….Joe Dumas 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. ©2017 E-mail: [email protected] Club phone: 781-740-2000. Web page: www.ssmrc.org VOLUME 37 ■■■■■ NUMBER 5 ■■■■■ MAY 2017 CLUB OFFICERS BILL OF LADING President………………….Jack Foley Vice-President…….. …..Dan Peterson Chief’s Corner ...... …….….4 Treasurer………………....Will Baker A Club in Transition….…..13 Secretary……………….....Dave Clinton Contests ................ ………..4 Chief Engineer……….. .Fred Lockhart Directors……………… ...Bill Garvey (’18) Clinic……………..….…….7 ……………………….. .Bryan Miller (‘18) ……………………… ….Roger St. Peter (’17) Editor’s Notes. ….…....… .13 …………………………...Rick Sutton (‘17) Form 19 Orders .... ………..4 Members .............. ….…....14 Memories ............. .………..5 Potpourri .............. ..……….7 ON THE COVER: The first 25% of our building was Running Extra ...... ………..14 set aside for member and building support. (Many of these historical pictures are from the camera of John Governor , RIP, the first member to get a digital camera.) 2 Fred V. Alexander January 16, 1939-April 25, 2017 Our friend and SSMRC Brother passed away peacefully surrounded by his family. Fred joined the Club in 2003, after attending many of our Shows and Open Houses for about 40 years. He was quite a character, and we all loved him for his quirkiness—and hearing deficiency! Many a joke was made to him, after his asking “what?” or squinting at the speaker during a conversation, knowing that he hadn’t heard what was said. Fred had been a pipefitter and then became a “jack of all trades” when he retired. He and a small group of men became a “home improvement” team and would assist homeowners in fixing problems or improving their property. These abilities carried over to the Club, where he was a talented help in construction of the benchwork for the first and second peninsulas. Fred liked to participate as “brakeman” for the local freight jobs during Operations. He had purchased a Digitrax throttle, but I never saw him use it. I do believe that he came to the Club by himself on occasion, and might have tried it out then. He really liked the Shows and Open Houses; he always helped out at the front table and was so anxious that we do good with ticket sales and pushing raffle tickets. Most of all, Fred enjoyed the social aspect of the Club, and gabbing with various members sitting in the lunchroom with a beverage was Fred in his glory. He was always a participant in the annual “Pool Party” and enjoyed that camaraderie to its fullest. Part of it was probably due to his love of water—boating and fishing, in particular. This was Fred’s favorite time of year-- when he could get out in his boat. Fred was an active “Hinghamite” being involved in the community with youth soccer and hockey, the Rotary, and he was a Mason. The Town and we will miss Fred, and what he brought to the organization. Thankfully, we had Fred with us for almost 15 years and those whose lives he touched will never forget him. Rest in Peace, my friend. David N. Clinton 3 FORM 19 (done with his new program) is titled “Some New Haven Parlor Cars” it is a favorite “word-find” ORDERS puzzle. Extras in the usual place. Don’t forget to include your name. Good luck! MAY B.O.D. MEETING Thursday, June 1st 8 p.m. <><><><><><><><><><><> DOWNEASTER TRIP Saturday, June 3rd Our Show Raffle winners were drawn at this JUNE BUSINESS MEETING month’s Business Meeting. The winners were: Monday, June 5th 8 p.m. 1st $100 Kevin Waldon, from E. Weymouth ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING & ELECTIONS nd th 2 $50 Kate Hall, from Hingham Monday, June 5 8 p.m. 3rd $25 Simon Colley, from Hingham DECODER & LOCO TUNE-UP CLINIC th Thursday, June 8 8 p.m. SUMMER NEWSLETTER DEADLINE Saturday, June 24th Fred Lockhart JUNE B.O.D. MEETING Monday, June 26th 8 p.m. th Last Thursday night, May 18 , we had a Layout Design Committee CONTESTS meeting to discuss plans for the part of the railroad on the side of the third leg facing the parking lot and the area Congratulations to Marty Melamed on winning known as the “staging room”. The this month’s 50/50 Raffle! meeting went well and the plans were approved, they will now be presented This month’s contest was correctly answered by 12 to the membership at a Business members: Meeting for final approval. I’m not going into the details of the design here; I’m going to outline the Dan Peterson Jack Foley process of going from plans to construction. The Al Taylor Fred Lockhart first step will be to develop a plan of construction, Fred Foley Bill Garvey an order in which the different pieces of this Doug Buchanan Ron Clough expansion will take place in order to minimize Barry Doland Savery Moore disruption to the railroad, as we must have the Brendan Sheehan Jim Ferris railroad running for our Open Houses and Shows. The next step will be to estimate the cost of each Congratulations! All found that Amtrak’s newest part of the expansion, so we can stay within the locomotive, now being tested, was built by Siemens budget the Club has approved for the railroad for and is called the “Charger”, with a designation of this year and to help determining future budgets. SC-44. They also all went home with the prize: a Then there is the timeline of construction, which will 16-oz. Stainless Tumbler with all of Amtrak’s name be the hardest to predict. Once this is done, we can trains on the outside. start construction for the part of the Third Leg work; most of that section will be built off the layout, like <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> we did for Cedar Hill when that was being built. It FOR JUNE: In connection with Rapido announcing should be mostly complete as far as trackwork and that they will produce all the New Haven named wiring. The Scenery Committee can even pre-build Streamlined Parlor Cars, Al Taylor’s next puzzle the structures for it, once the trackwork is in place. The work on the staging room can also be started after it is cleaned out and some improvements 4 made. This area will be started first, as there is a good chance the staging yard may be able to be put into service without disrupting any of the existing railroad, which would benefit operations and give us a place to store members’ trains left on the railroad during shows, that are not going to be used for the show. These two pieces are part of a larger plan that the Engineering Group is working on. The timeline of this project will be determined by you, and your participation. The Benchwork Committee has a good complement of workers, the Trackwork and Electrical Committees are light on help, at the present time. The Trackwork Committee has only two people to build turnouts and I would be willing to run a “refresher” course for members that I have shown turnout-building in the past, if they are willing to commit to building turnouts for the new sections of the railroad. If not, I will budget the expansion for ready-made turnouts which will be at least ten times more expensive and something I don’t really want to have to do. Update on electrical: Bob England has been working on some of the new firmware updates from Digitrax for the UR92 receivers, the new command station and the DT402D throttles. These updates are necessary for all the components to play well together for what Digitrax calls “larger layouts”. In the near future, we will be installing the new command station and at that time we will have to upgrade all the DT402D throttles, like we did a couple of years ago. This can all be done here at SEMAPHORE the Club. Hopefully with this new equipment some MEMORIES of the control problems will go away. Hmm, I think I have said that before! That’s it for this month. MAY 2012 (5 years ago) Fred Lockhart Benchwork Committee completes connection of new Chief Engineer peninsula to Steel Mill area. Both Divisions planned to operate for October Show. Part of Cedar Hill to operate. Mobile ticketing announced for MBTA. SPECIMEN ELECTION BALLOT MBTA opens new Wickford Jct. station in RI. State of IL announces “Union Pacific RR Day” th st honoring 150 anniversary of RR on July 1 . Housatonic RR ends permission of Berkshire Scenic Here is what this year’s ballot looks like. If you will RR to operate on its tracks. not be able to attend the Annual Meeting, and wish Dispute over who will pay to move Mansfield New an absentee ballot, please contact the Secretary.