Ron & Janice Griesel

2795 Ferndale Drive

Eugene 688-8926

Tuesday July 14^th @ 7 PM

DIRECTIONS: ^{Don't leave home without them}.

Go north on River Road past Beltline Highway to Irving Road. Left onto Irving Rd. then Right on Ferndale. Park anywhere you can and walk to where the white whale of a fifth wheel is parked.

We plan to have a time saver switching layout operating to challenge our mental facilities to the limit shuffling cars to designated sites.

Come see the progress Ron and Janice have made on their outdoor layout. They have added water! Ron has also modified a Bachmann Porter into a saddle tank. Ask Ron to show how his dog Digger bashes the door open with his face to get outside.

Last Meeting: We met at Steve Andereggan's home. What a huge amount of work he has completed remodeling his home! Despite all the repair work Steve has also been creating a garden train layout. . We had a great time doing what we do best...sharing videos and trains and chatting non-stop. We dedicated the meeting to informal fun.

Wylie & Randy McKinnon's daughter, Heidi, lost her battle with cancer. Wylie honored their daughter at the memorial service on May 7^thplaying his bagpipes. Heidi deeply touched the lives of many, as was evident in the testimony of family and friends.

Ken Halliwell

The following is an e-mail Joy sent to update me on their activities. Since this time Ken has informed me his plastic knee has to be replaced after only five years due to internal bleeding and another old surgery also needs reconstruction due to bone loss around a metal pin.

Ken and I (Joy) had an experience today. We become members of the Yuma Valley

Historical Train Society. He got to ride in the engine (1952 Davenport Beshler, diesel electric, center cab. 45 ton). He is in training for fireman and will go on to other jobs. He will work his way up to engineer.

He will also help with maintenance on Wednesdays. Looks as though he has

found his niche. It is pulling 2 passenger cars. Making trips saturday and Sunday. I helped in being a hostess today. I need to learn local history and know the crops that are grown locally. This has garden railroading beat in a 1000 ways. There is nothing like sitting in the seat of the locomotive and controlling the speed of the engine. Tell Gerald Kesselring when you see him, "I've sat at the throttle of a real engine, eat your heart out!"

Speaking of Gerald...

Gerald has laid 7" guage track to his back yard and is constructing a trestle. Train Mountain had their Spring Meet Friday, Sat & Sun May 29-31. Gerald had a wonderful time. The extent of track is incredible as are the quality of equipment to build the 1 1/2" scale railroad. If you are interested in visiting probably the world's largest 7" guage layout phone Gerald at 689-4195.

From Jackie Kesselring...

Q: What do electric trains and women's breasts have in common?

A: They were originally intended for children but it is men who play with them the most.

(Jackie did not tell me this. But since she promised to "get me" I thought a preemptive strike was a great idea. I will keep you all posted on Jackie's attempts to stir things up.)

Member Layout Updates

Luis Bianchini has added a tunnel, a pond and is making a water fall for his garden railway.

Rob Adams reports adding many loads of dirt to his yard for the layout. At this time his radio control and sound installation business has been so demanding progress has slowed.

Doug & Ruth have returned from Arizona and are busy setting their Oakridge home and layout in order.

Steve Anderreggan has retaining walls and pond and mountain in place. All plumbing and retaining walls are in place. Lanscaping is in the rough shaping of dirt stage, complete with what appear to be scale bomb craters. My fertile mind figured Steve had a scale model of the USS Guardfish SSN 612, which Steve served on for a time. From his scale submarine I pictured Steve launching scale missiles to sculp his lunar appearing landscape. Turns out the craters were due to critters!

Farewell to SP

From a Southern Pacific discussion list I subscribe to: sp-list@gospel.iinet.net.au

Query:

Would someone be kind enough to inform me of use of the term Borg on the

list? I would like to know what it stands for and how it was arrived at (Union Pacific I assume). This will improve my understanding of the list.

Response:

The first time I saw it used was on the old Fido "Railfans" echo. The correct name is Omaha Borg Machine. "Resistance is futile, you will be

assimulated...And painted yellow and grey..."

More from the SP list.

Subject: Re: Questions about SP steam paint schemes in 1930's Smokeboxes were subject to heat and weathering, so there is no "correct" color. Just don't use silver or aluminum. Silvered smolke box fronts sarted in 1946 or so.

The story I heard is that numberplates were painted red to honor fireman who kept good clean fires, i.e. no smoke. This was when engines were assigned to a particular crew. In any case, 2472 has a red numberplate because our fireman, John Teshara dosn't make smoke.

Tunnel Motor? Steve Andereggan and yours truly were unclear about what constituted a "tunnel motor" so I asked the Southern Pacific discussion list.

A steam engine cannot be characterized as a "motor" of any kind. As I understand the term it actually refers to traction ( i.e., electric) motors. Trolley and interurban locomotives that collected electricity from

overhead wires or third rails were called motors. Occasionally, eastern railroaders can be found referring to standard diesel electric locomotives as "motors." In the west the term tunnel motor refers exclusively to EMD

SD45T-2 and SD40T-2 locomotives purchased by the Espee and the Rio Grande. These units have special air intakes that collect air from the bottom of tunnels to avoid ingesting their own superheated exhaust gasses from the

roof areas of the bore. They can be spotted by the see through grills located at deck level in their rather squared off rear bodies. UP is presently repainting and renumbering the SD40T-2s it inheirited from the Espee. I am not certain of the fate of the SD45T-2s.

Hope this answers your questions.

Bob Macdonald

Unique SP Markings

Wonder about that Suffern Pacific paint?

The image is quite genuine! The date stamp on the Kodak slide is 1981, and I'm not so sure you can alter an original slide anyway. Technology

for ultra clear photo manipulation was only available to the CIA, KGB and perhaps others back then to produce exemplary fakes. Again though,not on an original slide.

Seriously, anyone is welcome to view the slides and discern their authenticity. BTW, two additional views/angles of SD40R #7355 are at:

http://www.iinet.net.au/~espee/jpgs/Clyde_King/ck_sp7355b.shtml and

http://www.iinet.net.au/~espee/jpgs/Clyde_King/ck_sp7355c.sht*ml

Notice the unit is quite clean, indicating a recent release from the Espee's Sacramento Shops, who were busy turning out SD40Rs at the time. A theory is some employees wanted to have fun or express their views, and altered the lettering on one side (not sure, but the opposite side was probably untouched). The "S" and "N" of SOUTHERN are in their normal locations. Highly unlikely it lasted on the road very long, as no doubt someone noticed and they sent it in for adjustments. However,

it makes for an interesting if short-lived 'scheme'.

Rob Sarberenyi

Learning Curves:

Maintaining two restaurant large scale layouts running twelve to fifteen hours daily has led to a few discoveries.

(1) Trains that run perfect for a few hours before I leave the state of Washington cease to work within two hours to a maximun of a month for any number of reasons. Reasons have included dirty track, cut track (engine stuck with wheels turning until rail is cut), burned motors, damaged track, damaged power pickups, reed switche failure, and intrusions onto the track of debri from construction or from patrons tossing things to see if they can derail a train.

(2) Engines designed to work well for hobbyists fail to work properly in an amazingly short number of months. LGB works most reliably, but will have problems with motors and slider springs melting if any opportunity for the engine to roll into a reverse polarity block and short out. AristoCraft motors tend to burn out faster and to have gearing problems that lead to engines surging down track. USA engines run well and longer than AristoCraft, but less time than LGB. USA motors are far less expensive that LGB to replace. (3) Power supplies vary a lot in performance and protection. Unfortunately, some power packs have automatically reseting breakers so unwatched engines can derail and short rails or run into a block with reversed polarity (a direct shortoccurs under the engine). While staff pursue the frantic duties of waiting on dinning customers the power supply briefly turns off power then reaplys power for a time long enough to melt springs and perhaps pickup brushes and motors. A day or three latter I get a call that the trains are not working. Therefore, look for manually reset circuit breakers on your power pack or place a manually resetable circuit breaker between your power supply and the track. Don't leave operating trains untended for any length of time to minimize damage. Use power supplies without pulse or nudge circuits and with as pure a DC wave as possible since many motors and sound systems are very easily burned by inferior units or units with AC waves overlapping DC waves to keep lights on locos lit while the loco is stationary. Such power packs are fine for use with the brand of engine they are designed to operate only.

(4) Wheels are critical. Engine wheels can wear until they are severely concave causing the wheels to jam on the rails. Check wheels for wear if an engine motor works but the engine sticks on the track. If your track has reverse curves or tight curves and you want to run reliably and reduce engine load consider adding metal wheels with at least one ball bearing wheel per axle. Gary Raymond makes wheel sets with one ball bearing or two per axle. Ball bearings allow the cars to roll through tight curves with far less resistance reducing the likelihood of derailments or stalls or premature motor burn out. At minimum use graphite in the journals to reduce rolling friction of standard wheels.

(5) Couplers can cause many problems. I prefer hook and loop couplers with hooks on both ends of every piece of equipment for displays that run non stop without supervision. Coupler height is important since many layouts have items placed in the track that are slightly above rail height. Check to make sure hooks on knuckle and hook & loop couplers are above the rail by 1/8" at least to prevent snagging items like sound magnets and reed swithces or power routing blocks placed between rails.

(6) Track should be laid with attention to gradual elevation changes and make sure that track is level from one rail to the other keeping rail joints smooth and with minimal gaps. Track slope can be measured with Smart Level costing about $80+ or by using a pitch guage available at Furrows for $10 that features a plumb mounted on a protractor with 360 markings that is very easy to place on a flat car or directly on track.