The Whistle - British Columbia Society of Model Engineers

The Whistle
The official publication of the BRITISH COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF MODEL ENGINEERS
Operators of the BURNABY CENTRAL RAILWAY Vol 40 – Issue 12 – December 2010
Our helpful, good witches on Halloween eve. From left to right:
Sharon Nordquist, Francine Carr, Linda Cavaghan, and Elaine Pruden.
The help these ladies provided was immeasurable in making the
Halloween Run such as success.
Next Meeting
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Rainbow Creek Station
120 North Willingdon Avenue, Burnaby, B.C.
Anyone who wishes to join the Society is welcome to attend this meeting.
This is the annual Christmas Dinner. Please bring something tasty
for everyone to share!
In This Issue
Page 2: Calendar
Page 4: The Caboose
Page 3: Return of The Hudson
Page 5: Out and About
The Whistle
Page 2
The Whistle is the monthly newsletter
published by, and for, the members of
the British Columbia Society of Model
Engineers (BCSME). Any opinions
expressed herein do not necessarly
reflect the policies of the Society. All
content is copyright of the BCSME,
and the individual contributors.
BCSME Address & Track Site
Rainbow Creek Station
120 North Willingdon Avenue
Burnaby, B.C., Canada
V5C 6K1
December 2010
BCSME Executive
President
Vice-president
Past President
Secretary
Treasurer
Business Manager
Sites & Projects
Ops & Maintenance
Social
John Ostler
Chuck Laws
Doug Bach
Gerry Wittenberg
Bruce Wilson
Barrie Sansom
Tom Pruden
Mario Benevoli
Tom Carr
604-926-8454
604-984-7507
604-420-0404
604-582-5940
604-871-9141
604-435-9802
604-273-5760
604-435-3754
604-463-9156
Monthly Meetings
Regular membership meetings are held on the first Wednesday
of every month, unless it is on a statutory holiday, at 7:30 pm
at Rainbow Creek Station.
Phone: 604-291-0922
Web Site: http://www.bcsme.org
Executive Meetings
Editor
The BCSME executive meet on the last Wednesday of every
month, unless it is on a statutory holiday, at 7:30 pm at Rainbow
Creek Station. Members are welcome to attend these meetings.
Joe Holman
307 – 1340 Duchess Avenue
West Vancouver, B.C., Canada
V7T 1H6
e-mail: jwholman@shaw.ca
Making Submissions & Deadline
If a BCSME member has any articles
or photos that they'd like to submit for
publication, please send them to the
editor as an attachment in an e-mail.
Please add the word “Whistle” in the
e-mail's subject line. The more
submissions made by members of the
the Society to The Whistle the better
this newletter will be.
The deadline for any submissions
is the 3 rd Sunday in every month.
Means of Publication
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Christmas Meeting
W ednesday December 1, 2010
See page 3 for details.
Frostbite Run
Sunday January 2, 2010
Annual General Meeting
W ednesday January 5, 2011
Election of Directors & other business
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS MEETING MAY BE
POSTPONED UNTIL JANUARY 12!
T he d ate w ill be decided at the No v. 24 Directo rs Meeting,
I use Sun Microsystem's OpenOffice
on a Linux PC to create this
newsletter. OpenOffice can open
almost any document file, with the
notable exception of the MS open
document file format. Any digital
pictures being sumitted should be in
the .jpeg format only.
and w ill be p o sted in the January 2 011 Wh istle & o n the
BCSME w ebs ite
More details on each event as their dates draw near!
Members are encouraged to submit any upcoming dates for other local or
regional rail clubs (within B.C., Alberta, Washington, Oregon, California)
that they may know of for publication in this section.
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year
To all the members of the BCSME, and especially those who
have helped contribute to the Society's newsletter in 2010.
Joe Holman, Editor
The Whistle
Page 3
December 2010
Library Inventory!
He's making a list, and he's checking it twice
He's going to find out who's naughty & who's nice!
So, if you have a book, or a video, on loan please return it
ASAP so Ian can take a complete inventory of our library.
If you don't co-operate you may find that this merry old elf will see to it
that your Christmas...
...is replaced by a...
Graphics: courtesy of www.freeclipartnow.com
Return Of The Hudson
Finally, on Monday November 8 the Society's other heavy haul steam engine came home. After over a year of meticulous care
at Roy Bickerstaffe's shop Kent Cavaghan did us the honour of loaning his van to pick up the long-awaited early Christmas gift!
As you can see from the pictures that follow she looks like she's in mint condition. She's passed her boiler pressure test and
the safety valves have been set. Now the timing on her piston valves need to be set and once that is done, hopefully, she'll be
ready to roll on the main line once again.
Left: Mario Benevoli
giving the cab a
close inspection
while Kent
Cavaghan looks
on.
Right: The reunion of
two old mates.
Joe Carroll puts
his hand in the
cab to get the
feel of a valve
while Tom
Pruden looks
on.
Clockwise from right: details of the
turret showing
the valves and gauges. Below a look
at the gas shut-off valve, firebox door,
brake valve, and reverser. Left a look
at the right side cross-head and valve
gear.
Outside photos: courtesy of Gerry Wittenberg.
Close-up photos: courtesy of Eivint Luffe
The Whistle
Page 4
December 2010
The Caboose hasn't turned a wheel for a few months. Maybe its time to get the
rust off the treads so jump aboard. I had a wonderful trip to the United Kingdom
and Switzerland This month let me tell you about my first stop, England.
I stayed with Mike Johns, President of the Taunton Model
Engineers and a BCSME member, at his home near Taunton in
Somerset. He took me to see The South Devon Railway. It
has 7 miles of track between Totnes and Buckfastleigh. I got
to ride in the cab of a 2-6-2 GWR tank engine, seen here at
the right. The loco is coal-fired and was a wee bit cramped
with four of us in there, but it was a fun ride. They have a
large shop and they can do major overhauls of their 4' 8½”
gauge engines, including wheel turning and boiler repairs.
Moving on, I paid a visit to visit Tony Gosling,
seen at left with a Land Rover that he and his
son built for the grand-children. We drove to
his son Steve's place in the Midlands where we
stayed for 3 nights and visited the 7¼" Gauge
Society convention meet at the Echills Wood
Railway near Kingsbury. At the right you can
see two Denver & Rio Grande C 19 locos that
were there double-heading. This miniature
railway has been recently completed after
having to shift from their previous site, due to
urban development! The track was flat and a
mile long and ran through lovely scenery, being
in the woods by a lake. A short tunnel, bridges,
and two stations made the ride a very realistic.
There were 104 locomotives at the meet. In fact there
were so many engines that they erected a temporary
tent-style roundhouse which you can see at left. The
times for running the engines had to be timetabled as
there was only one route. The majority of the locos
were narrow gauge steam, like the one from Holland at
right. Gas driven engines and electrics were also
present. The club, I've been told, has carried as many
as 44,000 passengers in a year. They use some bench
cars which can carry 6 passengers in a squeeze, and
some more traditional sit inside cars that are heavy and
take only 4 riders. The track has very heavy duty steel
profile rail screwed down to 2" x 4" laid on the 4" width.
Not very scale to look at but certainly very stable.
The following day we all went to the Statfold Barn Railway
where the owner has a 1½ mile three-rail track that handles
2 ft and 2½ ft gauge. It also has a museum displaying
many locos from around the world, such as the converted
Land Rover, at left. They have their own machine shop
equipped to rebuild engines and boilers. They are one of the
very few places in the UK where new steam engines are built!
One stand-out item was this Foden coal-fired steam wagon,
seen at the right. This truck (lorry in UK parlance) drove to
the Echills meet the day before, and is quite road-worthy.
All in all, it was was a wonderful long weekend for model rail
fans.
Catherine arrived in UK when we returned. We had a day out in Taunton and enjoyed shopping.
We also shared a traditional English pub meal, at left, with Mike and Gerry Johns.
Catherine and I stayed with Tony and Liz Gosling for 2 nights and they took us to Wells where
there is a wonderful medieval cathedral. Then it was onto London by train to Waterloo station.
Coming through Clapham Junction, the busiest junction in the world with 16 mainlines
converging, is a revelation.
All Photos: courtesy Lindsay McDonnnell
The Whistle
Page 5
December 2010
I went up to Bedfordshire and stayed with Jim Vass. Jim showed me his beautifully built 7.25"g LMS Duchess class 4-6-2
steam loco under construction. He has made the castings and meticulously copied every detail in his 1/8 sized model. He
took me to a full sized railway museum at Didcot. A Thomas The Tank Engine weekend was in full swing with lots of steam
tank engines running with funny faces. Most of the preserved full sized locos were from the Great Western Railway, GWR, or
commonly referred to as God's Wonderful (or worst) Railway by admirers or others.
Editor's Note: Get your lederhosen and alpenhorns out because next month Lindsay will treat us to the journey
he and Catherine made through the Interlaken region of Switzerland. It should be a good read!
For those interested in learning more about the rail museums and societies that he visited, please
see the following websites:
http://www.devonrailwaycentre.co.uk/
http://www.ewr.org.uk/
http://www.statfoldbarnrailway.co.uk/
http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/
Our Members Getting Out & About
This fall our members participated in two model train events: the Mount Cheam Lions Club show in Chilliwack and
the annual train show at Burnaby's Cameron Centre. And, of course, we're now busy at Lougheed Mall running
the Santa Express. These are just some of the activities that our volunteer members participate in every year.
Thanks guys!
Left: Barrie Sansom, Phil
MacGregor and Bill
Mellors manning our
display table at the
Mt. Cheam show.
Right: Paul Roy helping
out at the Mt.
Cheam show.
Above Photos (L & R): courtesy of Ian MacGregor
Right: Dinner at IHOP after setting up the
track at Lougheed Mall. From left to
right: Kent Cavaghan, Bruce Wilson,
Lindsay McDonnell, Gerry Wittenberg,
Joe Holman, Rob Woodward, John
Ostler, Phil MacGregor, Doug Bach,
Tom Pruden, Linda Cavaghan
Photo: courtesy of Eivint Luffe