December

RAILMAIL

 

Tulsa Garden Railroad Club

 

President, Donnie Shirey   

918-361-1760   donniewshirey@mbcsi.com

Vice. Pres. Bob Gardine

918-476-6374    bgardine@chouteautel.com

Treasurer, Kathy Klawitter   

918-283-4631   mjkjn6789@cox.net

Secretary, Nadine Hodge   

918-742-1743   nh2640@sbcglobal.net

Editor, Jim Martin    

918-756-3324   nitram1933@sbcglobal.net

 

Tulsa Garden Railroad Club

C/o N. Hodge, Secy.

2640 E. 14th St.

Tulsa OK 74104

www.tulsagardenrailroadclub.org

info@tulsagarderailroadclub.org

 

Greetings from the President’s Roundhouse

Last nights club Christmas party was a good one, with all attending having a good time. I would like to thank Barbara and Kathy for getting this years party together. We had a good turnout, and I think most everyone had a good time and some good food.

I would like to take this opportunity to again welcome our new members, some of whom were at the Christmas party and found out how fun it is to actually come to our club Christmas party, as Mr. Sullivan was the recipient of the Grand Door Prize.

 

I want to remind everyone about the meeting coming up in January. The meeting will be held as usual on the last Thursday and then on the last Saturday, a workshop will be held at the Shirey house to work on modules, determine ground track layouts, and to have a session with Bob Gardine about loading and packing the club trailers. Bob has done a lot of work on the ground track trailer in getting everything organized and in its proper place so that nothing gets damaged during the trips to the shows.

 

Be thinking about some topic of interest that you may be able to present at a club meeting. We still need programs for the club meetings.                                          Until the meeting…. Donnie

 

 

Shows, Meetings & Events

Hillcrest Children’s Ward will have a TGRRC display the week before Christmas. Watch for details from Joe Salamon

 

Trains at North Park Mall, Dallas TX, running thru Jan 4th, ’09. Great display of over 40 trains on over 2500 feet of track! The walk through display takes you cross country and features “O” and “G” gauge equipment. Well worth the price of admission of $5 for adults and $3 for kids and seniors. Proceeds support the Dallas Ronald McDonald House.

 

24th Annual Dallas Train Show, Jan 17th & 18th at the Plano Centre. Hours 10am to 5pm. Info at 817-721-5064 or www.dfwtrainshows.com

 

TGRRC Monthly Mtg, Thursday, January 29th, Tulsa OK. The program  will be on “modules”, the hows &  whys.

 

Module Workshop January 31st at the Shirey’s in Collinsville getting modules tuned up (and/or new ones made) for the ’09 shows

 

6th Annual Great NWA Model Train Show February 28, ’09, Bentonville AR. Good one day show. Includes all gauges with displays, contests, vendors and RR artifacts. Info at w5mth73@cox.net or 479-426-1544

 

Great Train Expo, Tulsa, March 7& 8, ’09 at Tulsa Convention Center.  This is the big one for this area and TGRRC will have 50’ x 50’ exhibit area for modules and ground track layout

 

25th Annual Garden Railway Convention, July 5-11, Denver CO. This is where it all began twenty five years ago. Great convention with tours, vendors and exhibits. If you’ve not been to a Garden RR Convention, this is the one to attend. Details and registration forms available at www.2009ngrc.com

 

Colorado Railroad Museum – has a great newsletter called the Telegrapher that you can receive by contacting Donald Tallman at donald@ccrm.org and a new web site that’s available at

coloradoRAILROADmuseum.org  

 

The History Channel has a new show called Extreme Trains, Tuesdays at 9pm! Ride along on the big ones! Good show, great footage, interesting facts.  The December 9th show featured “steam” with UP 844 running from Cheyenne to Denver and back.

 

Cordless Renovations of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has announced a new series of 8 different battery packs for large scale locomotives that range from 6 Volts to as high as 24 Volts.  Details can be found at their web site at  www.cordlessrenovations.com

 

Did You See? – Saturdays game (Dec. 6th)  between Tulsa Hurricanes and East Carolina State. Ollie’s Restaurant was spotlighted a couple of times during the game with both exterior and interior footage. Too bad they couldn’t show the Hurricanes celebrating there afterward as they lost 27-24.

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know?

That the UP rail yards in Nebraska, without removing a freight car from a train, can remove an axle with a bad wheel. A special jack lifts the end of the car, the bad axle is rolled out and removed, the new axle rolled into place, the car lowered back onto the track….and it’s all done in under 5 minutes!                                                                            

TGRRC Minutes: November 2008

The meeting was called to order by President Donnie Shirey, who welcomed guests Dennis and Lisa Sullivan.  The Minutes were approved as published in the Railmail.  The Treasurer’s Report was given.

 

Old Business

Joe’s Night-time Run – Although the plan was to go to Joe’s after the meeting to run trains, it was decided to postpone the night-time run because of the wind -- too many derailments.  Instead, club members are invited to Joe’s after the Christmas party or any evening during the next couple weeks when weather permits running trains.

 

Children’s Hospital – Bill Black contacted Hillcrest, OSU, South Crest and St John hospitals offering to set up a Christmas train display.  They all declined, saying they had no place to put us.  Skip met with the Executive Director at St. Francis Children’s Hospital, who was very interested in a train display, but the idea needs to be approved by the building administrator, who is currently out of the office.  If we are given permission for a train layout, we need to make it an impressive display with buildings and Christmas villages.

 

Christmas Party – Tickets for the Christmas Party were available at the meeting.  Charleston’s requires a $10 reservation fee.  As usual, there will be a tie contest for the men and we will have a “bring a gift, take a gift” exchange, with a $20 limit per gift. 

 

Power Supplies – Club members approved the purchase of two new power supplies at $150 each.  The treasurer provided a check to Vernon Guess for the purchase of the power supplies.

 

Dues – Club members unanimously approved keeping the dues at their current level, i.e., $20 for single memberships and $30 for a family membership, rather than changing the dues to $25 for all memberships.  It was agreed that family memberships include up to four people in the same household, with all adults having voting rights and privileges.  In keeping with this, it was agreed that the Vern Guess and son Victor, who are now living in the same household, qualify for the $30 family membership, with voting rights and privileges.

 

Rail Connectors – Club members approved the allocation of $50 for the purchase of slip-on rail connectors.  Donnie volunteered to contact Ludwig.

 

Webpage – Joe would like input from club members as to the design of the web page.  Donnie encouraged Joe to resize photos on the website to the smallest possible size for the convenience of internet users who do not have broadband service.

 

New Business

Great Northwest Arkansas Train Show, Bentonville, Arkansas, February 28, 2009 – There were enough interested and available club members (Shirey, Martin, Klawitter, Sharp, Wolohon, Black), so we will be setting up a module display at the Bentonville show on February 28.  It is a one-day show.  Set-up will be Friday Feb 27 afternoon and evening.  A model contest will be held – scratch built, kit bashed, all scales, with winners to be determined by popular vote.  Rooms are available at the Clarion for $69 per night.   We discussed whether to take both modules and ground track.  But if we do both, we need to haul two trailers.  Gary Gill mentioned that in the past, the event has been primarily a module show.  So it was decided to set up a module display only.

 

Module Workshop – We will bring a module to the January 29 meeting to discuss construction, size, decoration, etc., to better prepare us for a module workshop to be held at Donnie and Barb’s on Saturday, January 31.  We need to get our modules ready for the Bentonville show in February and for the Great Train Expo in March in Tulsa.

 

OKC Show and Fayetteville Show – Vernon encouraged club members to attend the train show in Oklahoma City on December 6-7 (where the Guesses will have their new module layout) and the Fayetteville show on December 13.

 

Misc – Skip Honeyman brought a box of coal that is to-scale for train layouts, for anyone interested in adding coal to their coal tenders.   Club members were encouraged to experience the Dry Gulch Christmas Train near Pryor and the Christmas inflatables display at the Castle in Muskogee.  Vernon purchased from the club the remaining pieces of track of a 20-ft diameter curve.

Happy Birthday to Warren, who will turn 87 in late November. 

 

Submitted by Nadine Hodge, Club Secretary

 

A few pics from the Christmas party….

Hmmmm, I wonder what Donna is ordering?

 

Yep, Jim’s out of his chair and playing with his camera again!

 

And Harry is thinking “I got the tie, nobody can beat me this year!”

 

Just a few of the goodies for the gift exchange….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wishing you all the best for a safe and

OUR NEXT MEETING

Thursday, 6:45pm, January 29th, at the Freewill Baptist Church, 1190 N. Mingo, Tulsa OK  “All Aboard”!