Amherst Railway Society
April 21, 2009
Meeting Announcement

"BCRail: Tour of the line September 1987"
by Doug Scott

Photo © by Doug Scott

In September 1987, the West Coast Railway Association set up a "Tour of the Line" excursion using BCRail RDCs. The trip covered virtually the entire railroad, from North Vancouver to the northern extremes of the line through Fort St. John to Fort Nelson and over into Dawson Creek, ALBERTA through the Peace River Valley.

The slide show will also include the pre-trip excursion to Vancouver Island and the post-trip tour around greater Vancouver to view Alcos and other related railroad points of interest

Doug Scott

Doug Scott has been a photographer for almost 50 years.{ He actually did have a Kodak twin lens box camera and DID photograph trains at Edaville RR then] but not until he took his first cross country train trip in Fall 1977 did he pay any attention to trains and railroad photography. Since that time , Doug has had the good fortune to have ridden and photographed trains in all 50 states, a good part of Canada, and also in Japan. He is the official photographer for the Mass Bay RRE and frequently has pictures published in their "CALLBOY" monthly newsletter.

Doug lives in Eastham, on Cape Cod,  and dreams about the HO scale railroad that he may never build in his basement, but when he is out doing his railroad photography, it is also with an eye toward capturing scenes that could be used in model railroading. His 'Musconetcong Tunnel' module has been a part of the Amherst Belt Lines Big Railroad Hobby Show layout for the past 13 years, and he is also currently President of the Cape Cod Model Railroad Club and is a past President of the Cape Cod Chapter, National Railway Historical Society. Until this past January, Doug worked for the 21 1/2 years in the photo processing business and has now switched to the digital format, but he likes sharing the slide and print collection that he has produced. He also enjoys photographing maritime subjects such as lighthouses, schooners and tugboats, and also windmills and covered bridges.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Volunteers needed for:

• Company Store - 1 or 2 to help out at meetings and shows
• Library - 1 or 2 to help at meetings, store and transport items, and cataloging of new materials
• Trip - 1 or 2 to assist in setting up trips
• Web site - 1 more to assist Joe in web site maintenance / upgrade [No experience necessary -- will train!!!]

FROM THE TRIP COMMITTEE

Amherst members please sign up for the FREE trip on the Housatonic Railroad ((on May 30 2 PM) trip at the April or May meeting. We must give the railroad a head count so they can reserve seating on our own cars

Also, please see the Mass Bay flyers for the trips coming up soon.

• New Hampshire http://www.massbayrre.org/CapitalLimited-ARS.pdf
• Connecticut http://www.massbayrre.org/HousatonicFlyer-ARS.pdf
• Amherst members can use the Mass Bay price for their own ticket, guests pay full price

Phil Johnson, Trip Committee

FROM THE CLERK

Please start checking for ARS Library materials that you still have checked out. You can still check out materials at the April and May meetings, but everything is due June 16.

Please check your address label for a 2009 membership expiration date. Memberships expire on June 30 of the renewal year. Student memberships are free and only good for one year. Paid memberships are $20 for one year, $50 for three years and $80 for five years

Message from the Show Director:

Our first formal meeting will take place with the entire Show Committee this coming April 22nd. The agenda will be a bit out of the ordinary as it requires that we first meet at the Eastern States Exposition Fair Grounds and then immediately after that site-inspection, our formal meeting will take place. The reason I tell you about this early “ESE” meeting is because we are looking at the Mallary Building for the final time (again!). We need to be sure that the space will work for us before we make that final move.

If taken, it will bring the amount of space for the entire show up to 343,400 square feet, which is just shy of 8 acres! We currently have just under a quarter million square feet or 5.4 acres! Now, that is a lot of floor space! Believe it or not, we can fill that space almost immediately. We have many exhibitors wanting more space not to mention people who have been waiting for a number of years.

If we take the Mallary Building, we will need a few more volunteers, but more importantly, we will need another 6 floor managers. Floor managers are critical to the hour to hour operation of the show, just as our volunteers are critical to the set up and breakdown of the show. Without any one of these groups, we could not get it done.

If you are interested in becoming a floor manager, please contact me via the http://www.railroadhobbyshow.com web site. Please understand that these duties entail a bit more than just volunteering, including your commitment to orientation classes with regard to fire drills, lost people (especially children) and injured people. It’s a great deal of hard work that will leave you little time for the show, so keep that in mind if you are interested.

Finally, we are only 3 meetings away from the newly created “Silent Auction” that ends our season. To date, I have accumulated some new books, pieces of art, locos, some VERY old Lionel pieces, transformers, (one, a new DCC system), cars, a great deal of Woodland Scenic materials, a number of items of railroad related clothing and more. If you have any pieces you wish to donate to the silent auction, please let us know prior to the June meeting. Remember, we will be set up early at the final meeting. Bidding will start as soon as we are set up. All proceeds will go into the grant fund, so every dollar we make from this event will be helpful.

As always, I encourage anyone with any ideas, thoughts for the show, possible new vendors – you name it, we would love to hear from you.

John Sacerdote, Show Director

From the AMHERST BELT LINES…

Railfair ’09 sponsored by the Nashua Valley Railroad Association (NVRRA) in Shirley, MA officially brought an end to the Amherst Belt Lines 2008-2009 show season. What a great season it has been! We would like to thank all who participated at the NVRRA show with setup and operation of the layout. Setup went quickly on Saturday evening and the layout ran very well on Sunday. In the spirit of promoting the hobby of model railroading, many of the younger show patrons were given a chance to take a cab in hand and operate a train around the layout. The smile on the face of a child who has just completed his run around the layout is really what this is all about. Thanks to everyone who helped make this a successful show and season!

The Amherst Belt Lines has been officially invited to participate at the Train Show at the NMRA Hartford National Convention. We have been allocated a space of 40 feet by 74 feet and will be inviting modules to participate. Some of the key modules we would like to see at the show are East Deerfield Yard, the Flood Loaders and the Rotary Dumper, as well as several others. We are hoping to show off our best at the Convention and take some time to refresh the scenery on a number of modules. More details on the Convention will be sent out in a Modular Mumblings to be published in the very near future.

Thanks again to all who participated at the shows this season and support the promotional efforts of the Amherst Railway Society and Amherst Belt Lines!

Show Schedule Update

The Belt Lines attends about six shows per year from September through April. As with every rule, the NMRA National Convention and Train Show in July will be the exception in 2009. If you would like to mark your calendars ahead of time for shows the Belt Lines will be attending, here are the dates

• July 9-12, 2009: NMRA National Convention and Train Show – Hartford, CT