Seacoast Division 2019 Spring Event Report

April 9, 2019

The Seacoast Division Spring Event was held on April 6, 2019 at the Newington Old Town Hall, 334 Nimble Hill Rd., Newington New Hampshire.  The Seacoast Division would like to thank John Newick for providing the venue.  This was the first time the Seacoast Division held a meeting at the Newington Old Town Hall.  The second floor meeting room was the ideal size for the event and was well equipped for our needs.  Overall a great location for the Spring Event

The Board of Directors Meeting was held at 8:30.  Acting Secretary Chip Faulter submitted a separate report for BOD meeting.

Glenn Mitchell kicked off the Event at 10:00 AM. 39 people attended and 37 were NMRA members.  After welcoming everyone and giving opening remarks, he introduced President Tage Erickson.  

Tage welcomed the attendees and thanked everyone for coming to the event.  His main topic was the need for division members to step up and volunteer for positions.  Currently the Division Secretary and Maine Activity Coordinator positions are vacant and need to be filled.  The upcoming National NMRA Convention in Salt Lake City Utah and the North East Region Convention in Syracuse New York were briefly discussed.  These conventions offer great opportunities to see and operate on outstanding layouts that we have all read about.  It was also noted that several Seacoast members will be giving clinics at the NWER convention.

There were no AP awards presented by Larry Cannon, MMR, Maine AP Chairman or Tom Oxnard, MMR, New Hampshire AP Chairman

The first presentation was given by Tom Oxnard, MMR and was titled How to Scratch Build a Locomotive.   Once again, Tom did an outstanding job presenting his great work.  He began by reviewing the AP requirements for scratch building a locomotive including what can be purchased and what must be scratch built.   Next, he discussing how to choose a candidate locomotive, in his case the Boston and Maine GE-IR 1100 and how he researched and found data on the rare one-of-a-kind specimen.  He was able to get copies of several photos and one dimensioned scale drawing.  From there, he walked the audience through the construction, painting, and decaling.  We were rewarded by seeing and hearing outstanding Tom`s creation operate on the test track.  Great work Tom! (If you didn`t get a chance to attend this presentation, Tom will be giving it again and the NER Convention in Syracuse.)

Tom Nelson was the second presenter and his topic was An Introduction to LCC. Tom is on the committee that has developed the NMRA standards for LCC.  He talked about what LCC is and what it isn`t and compared and contrasted LCC to DCC.   Tom discussed how the LCC standard is a high-level framework that can be implemented with different communication methods.  Currently, hardware is being developed by manufacturers using the CAN (Controlled Area Network) bus.  LCC offers model railroaders a standard method for performing block detection, signal control, and turnout control without data messages competing for bandwidth with locomotive control messages (DCC).  During lunch Tom demonstrated LCC with his portable layout.   Tom gave a great talk about very current topic.  Thanks Tom!

After lunch Larry Cannon, ran the Seacoast Division event raffle.  Thanks Larry for running the raffle.

The third and last presenter was Mike Pedersen.  Mike presented Uncle Bob`s Trains. The presentation was sample of the great collection of photos taken by his uncle Robert L. Wilkerson.  Mike`s Uncle Bob who lived in the Chicago area, traveled extensively to capture photo`s, primarily of steam locomotives, in the mid-west and eastern states.   Most of the steam locomotives were shot in their final days of service.   Most of the locomotives are now gone, as well as most of the railroads that operated them.  We thank Mike for giving us this great look back at the glory days of railroading.

Certificates of Appreciation were presented to Tom Oxnard, MMR, Tom Nelson, and Mike Pederson.  The Seacoast Division offers these tokens of appreciation for the time and effort they put into preparing for and giving three great talks.  We thank you all for your contributions.

The Show, Tell and Ask session had the largest number of participants in recent history.  Rich Breton led off with his explanation of how to created stained glass windows in model railroad structures.  First time attendee and guest, 10 year old Namo Lomax presented three HO scale freight cars that he built. Namo did a great job modeling and presenting and we hope to see him at future events.  Paul Lessard presented two boxcars and a covered hopper and described the many weathering techniques that he used.  Tom Oxnard showed his York Industries and Olympia Tool and Die buildings made from ITLA brand modular building kits that are fabricated from laser cut MDF (medium density fiberboard).  Dave Emery presented his 3D-printed automobile and several City Classics company houses.  Lastly, Jim Wiggins showed the audience his N-scale super detailed locomotives.  Also, earlier in the program, Chris Oliver presented several of his structures.  We would like to thank all of the presenters for taking the time to show their work to all the members.

The meeting was closed with comments from Tage Erickson and Glenn Mitchell.  It is important to reiterate that the Seacoast Division needs members to volunteer for open officer positions and be presenters/clinicians for the summer and fall events.

During the event many model railroad sale items were available for purchase by members.

Fall Event was adjourned around 2:00

Following the Event, many of the attendees visited John Newick`s Central Main and Aroostook Railroad and Dick Fralick`s New Haven and Connecticut Central Railroad.  We all greatly appreciate that John and Dick opened their layouts in support of the Spring Event.

Upcoming events:

Seacoast Division Summer Event July 20, 2019
Great Falls Model Railroad Club
144 Mill St., Auburn, ME

Seacoast Division Fall Event - October 12, 2019
Stratham Fire House
2 Winnicutt Rd., Stratham NH.

Respectfully Submitted,

Glenn Mitchell

Seacoast Division Vice President, Director, and NH Event Coordinator