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May 2001

PIKES PEAK “N” GINEERS MODEL RAILROAD CLUB

THE RAILHEAD

SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL RAILROADING SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989

VOLUME 12, NUMBER 5, MAY, 2001

CONTENTS

From the Engineer’s seat

From the Caboose

April Board Meeting

April Business Meeting

Rocky Mountain Show

Tuesday Work Sessions

Tree Contest

Club Move

Caltrain

Parting Shot

During the May 7^th, open house, club members eagerly field questions from parents as their children delight in the passing trains. Other club members are busily getting their trains ready for their next journey across the layout. Photo taken by Alan Rex.

SCHEDULE

May 12^th 2001

Royal Gorge Trip

May 14^th 2001:

Board of Directors

Charlie’s Pit Bar-B-Que

On Nevada, just south of Austin Bluffs

6:30 PM                  Dinner

7:30 PM Meeting

May 18^th 2001

Deadline for the Create a Forest Contest

May 18^th 2001

Business Meeting

7:30 PM                  Meeting

8:30 PM                  Pot Luck

St. Francis Health Center

Pikes Peak and Institution

5^th Floor, near cafeteria

June 16^th 2001

PPNG Goes to Tiny Town

The April 7 Open House is a Banner Event

By Charlie Bay

Pikes Peak “N”Gineers had its most successful one-day event in memory when it held its open house on April 7, 2001. The club received more donations than it sometimes did for a two-day open house!

 It was all Lois Benton and Don Heath’s fault!

 The two of them put in a lot of plain hard work in advertising the open house. The Gazette actually had four (count ‘em, four) notices of our show in the week before! Cable TV, local neighborhood newspapers all had notices. Flyers were in every hobby shop.

Because of their efforts, we had a good crowd. And, as usual, PPNG members turned out in droves to ensure success. Helping out were Don Heath, who was our Dispatcher, Chris, Joe, Charley, Paul, Mike Peck, Steve, Alan, Craig, Lester, Brendan, Ann, Lois, Margaret, Jim, Vicki, Don Seidel, and Glenn. The big complaint that kept popping up was that we didn’t make this a two-day event. 

From the Caboose

Charles Bay, Superintendent

Glenn Hobbs, Editor

Just to bring everyone up on the latest club news, this past weekend was a busy one for the club.

 Last Friday, May 4, a few club members braved some miserable-looking weather to visit and run on my home layout. The results were mixed.

 Most of my layout is not level. It runs through a mountainous area and there is a lot of up and down. While the track work is mostly O.K. for my equipment, it was not friendly to most of everybody else’s.  So, I’ll be upgrading some spots to make future operations smoother. I use code 55 track. We found one engine with big flanges that just didn’t like anything smaller than code 80. I can’t do much about that problem.

 Our little Friday experiment also showed the importance of weighing cars.

 I thank everybody who came Friday evening, especially Lois, who brought some cookies!

 Saturday morning, I met Alan, Paul and Don Heath up at the Monument Park N Ride. By this time, a good four more inches of snow had fallen and the roads were slushy and slick in places. Undaunted, the four of us carefully traveled north and west to visit Fred Hughes in Evergreen. Fred manufactures the DCC-BitSwitch products.

 To bring everyone up to date, Fred has offered his products to us free if we convert our layout to Digital Command Control (DCC) and provide a reference for the marketing efforts of his products. Since we are now in storage, the only layout available for conversion to DCC is our new Morgan Traveling Layout. The club has already voted to convert one line of that layout to DCC. A committee, chaired by Don Heath, has been formed to investigate which DCC manufacturer would be the best for PPNG. To that end, Don has collected much information on DCC, the National Model Railroad Association’s DCC standards, and DCC manufacturers. I have also collected about a half inch of papers talking about DCC and DCC products. I have also received notices of financial inducements to the club; more about this below.