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Copyright © 2006, Amherst Railway Society
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Sudro Brown |
Clark Huber |
Alan Rice |
Happy spring! April is now about half over as this is being written; taxes should all have been completed, or extensions filed. And the Model Railroad Show season is over, at least for the Amherst Belt Lines. We had a very busy season this year, packing the layout up and hauling it off to six separate venues. We’ll pick it up again in September, but until then the layout, locomotives and Coordinators will take a much needed break. Before we depart for the summer, a brief recap and some “Thank You’s” are in order.
After a very successful start of the season with the Pepperell Siding Model Railroad Club Show in Pepperell, MA in September and the Bedford Boomers Railroad Exhibition in Bedford, NH in November, we started a rapid (relatively speaking) series of shows in December, January, February and March!
First up was the HUB Division NMRA Show in Marlborough, MA on December 3 and 4, 2005. We have been invited to the HUB Show on a number of occasions, but have always turned them down because of the time of year. Well, the stars and planets must have been in the right alignment this year because after a brief discussion it was decided we would go to the show. The two-day show was very well attended by both participants and the public. The 22’x44’ layout went together smoothly, with only minor modifications to the design. We were honored to be the first layout seen by the public as they came in through the door. The layout featured plenty of operation and moved several tons of coal over the weekend. Checkout a picture from the show at http://www.hubdiv.org/fall_show_page.htm. We look forward to a return to the show again in 2006 – assuming that the planets realign themselves again!
January was, as always, the main event. Many additions to the Belt Lines were noted this year, including the following: Prescott Valley (4’) built by the Bedsons; Jim Whitman returned with a new incarnation of Summit Junction that was a real crowd pleaser; the much talked about Quabbin Branch made its debut with the addition of the ABEL owned Quabbin Module thanks to the efforts of Sudro Brown and Bruce MacCullagh; Carlton Rohmer added another six feet to Bayard and Jim Mayo added four feet to Middletown; Colebrook got a corner and the coaling operation was configured in its own little loop – made external coal transfers much less cumbersome; finally, Arthur Martin and company returned with six feet of module and a promise of more, although how much more is yet to be determined. The show stealer again this year, however, was Patrick Kubala’s East Deerfield Yard. He added the engine facility and Co-op to the front of the yard and made some other changes to make it look even more like the real thing. This module set is really a tremendous piece of work and a fantastic example of selective compression without losing the character of the prototype. Congratulations again, Patrick. There were several pieces missing this year, not the least of which was Stan Slowik’s Port Arcadia, but we hope they will return next year. (Check out the following link to see some of Stan’s work and the awarding of Port Arcadia with the Permon award at the Bedford Show: http://boomers-rr.com/permon.html.)
The end of February found us back in Auburn at the awful hour of 7:00AM (on a Sunday, no less!) to setup for the Worcester Model Railroader’s Show. This is still a fun show to do, and a great challenge for racing the clock to get a layout running. We succeeded again this year, in part to the help of many hands – 22 individuals at last count! We brought Quabbin to this show and debuted Athol and the Athol Branch. The show was a little more intimate this year, with a change in vendors and a few vendors dropping out at the last minute. The Little Rhody Division joined the ranks of display layouts at Auburn this year with some really neat stuff. Although a small show, relative to others we attend, it was still a lot of fun and well attended. We look forward to an invitation to return in February of 2007…in fact, the invitation has already been extended!
March saw another huge attendance from the Belt Lines at a show. The Little Rhody Show probably broke records for attendance from Belt Lines participants. We mustered a large layout, 38’x60’ in an “L” shape, and had a few problems with setup. The first problem came when none of the coordinator’s bothered to find out what time the building closed on Saturday…Oops! We left much earlier than anticipated, but the layout was basically assembled with rail joiners and electricity being the major items missing for Sunday morning. The layout did not go together without a hitch, though, as we somehow got everything kinked, making for some on-the-spot engineering to straighten the railroad out. When all was said and done, the layout ran pretty well on Sunday. The Bedson’s added another eight feet to Prescott Valley for this show, making them the newest modules in the layout.
There are far too many people to thank individually for their efforts this year! Everyone involved with the organization deserves a very hearty “thank you” for all the work done this year. All the module owners have come up with some fantastic displays, many of which are real show pieces. If we started to list all the players involved in making these shows a success, we would never get to the end of the newsletter! So, in place of individual recognition, you know who you are:
No, this isn’t a diet advertisement or a hokey headline. The Show Committee of the Amherst Railway Society has asked the Amherst Belt Lines to go on a diet. A request has been submitted to see if we can fit into a smaller space in 2007 and Alan has started to look at what we can do with a 44’x90’ space. This means the loss of the short leg of the “L” or about 28’x44’ of layout area. In general, the layout design is very flexible so we should be able to get into this smaller footprint. We will all have to under stand that to do this some sacrifices may have to be made with modules being behind modules and such. Alan tries to get as much exposure to the modules as possible when designing the layout, but it isn’t always easy to achieve. This will mean some changes for 2007, but your coordinators will work our way through them. In the meantime, we thank you in advance for your patience.
Do we have your most current email address? Much of our communication these days seems to be through electronic mail regarding the shows. With the exception of this newsletter (which is also sent electronically!), very little we do is through the United States Postal Service. If you have an email address, please take a moment to send the Module Coordinators a message (our addresses are on the banner of the newsletter) so that we may be sure we have your current address on record. For those of you that have addresses that don’t have anything to do with your name – like Alan’s – please be sure to include your name somewhere in the message. If you don’t have an email address, let us know that somehow as well so that we can make sure that we keep everyone as up-to-date with information as possible. Thanks!
With all of the equipment we haul around to these shows, there is always the opportunity for something to break. With that in mind, the Amherst Belt Lines has several pieces of equipment and rolling stock in need of repair. If you have some time, and would be willing to take a shot returning bad ordered equipment to service, please let Sudro know. Right now we have several locomotives that require mechanical repair or overhaul. We also have some equipment that needs to hit the paint shop. As always, there is an opportunity to enhance the scenery on any of the Society owned modules in the trailer. All you need to do is ask!
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