June 2014 - Gold Coast Garden Railroad Society

Upcoming Events:
Saturday & Sunday
June 7-8 10 AM – 5 PM
Gary & Marilyn Siegel
Parkinson Fundraiser
Santa Barbara
(805) 969-7687
See text
Saturday June 14
Ed Morse & Diane
Thomas
Santa Maria
(805) 633-0666
Battery Power Only
Please bring:
A-G Salads
H-O Desserts
P-Z Appetizers
Saturday June 28
John Power & Angela
Wharton
Camarillo
(805) 816-4598
Battery Power Only
Please bring:
A-G Desserts
H-O Appetizers
P-Z Salads
July 19 OPS
July 26 Abraham
August 2 Goodman
August 9 Mele
August 16 OPS
August 16 DeBievre
June 2014
.Parkinson's Fundraiser
Gary & Marilyn Siegel are hosting their
fifth annual fundraiser to benefit the Parkinson Association of Santa Barbara.
This is not an official GCGRS function,
which means there is a tax deductible
donation at the entrance each day. Also,
food will be available for purchase, as will
raffle tickets for various prizes.
Several of our members have “adopted”
sections of the layout, and are loaning
buildings, people and whatever else would
add interest, and make the layout look
more complete. New this year, it would
be great if the new Eggliner track had several Eggliners running on it.
This event gets extensive coverage in the
local media, and draws a big crowd. If
you can spare some time to volunteer to
run Eggliners, sell tickets, sell food, or any
of a zillion other tasks, please contact the
Siegel's at the number at the left.
Ed Morse and Diane Thomas Meet
This layout is now a year old, and even
better than it was last year. It is still a
logging and mining layout, with steep
grades and 8 foot diameter curves.
It is all battery power only, so your
Siegel's Parkinson Fundraiser:
Eggliners will have to join your
mainline power in gathering dust
Directions and map omitted
until some other meet (see John
from on line edition. Please call Power's below). But do bring all
meet host for directions.
your small powerful engines and lots
of cars. The main line is quite
long, and long
trains will look
great here.
Note that although Google maps is accurate, Google street view still shows some
other house as Ed and Diane's. Just look
for the house with the wig wag and cross
buck beside the garage. You can't go
wrong that way.
John Power and Angela Wharton
Here is another year old layout. This one
is raised up four feet and has indoor as
well as outdoor segments. The indoor
part has a professionally painted backdrop
and the buildings are from Randy Bryie's
Pacific Coast Garden RR Supply.
You remember those big locos and cars
that you couldn't take to Ed and Diane's?
Well, they will be right at home here on
the long straightaways and broad curves.
So dust them off, and bring them down.
Unless they are track powered, of course.
In that case, never mind.
John says he has made some of the
curves even larger and added
landscaping. The indoor buildings are
animated and have added siding.
Coming Features
What do you think of when you think about
trains in August? Yes, that is exactly
right, and there will be an article on that
very topic in the August issue.
Wedding Bells
Crazy Charlie Richard and
long time girl friend Nansi
McCarroll have at last tied
the knot. They didn't send
any pictures for you, but fortunately someone who shall
remain anonymous was
able to hack into the NSA
data base, and by pure coincidence (ahem, cough
cough) there just happened
to be a drone near the
church at the time that took
this picture. And yes, the
bride is resigned to being known forever more as Crazi
Nansi.
All Aboard!!
Please welcome our newest member, Don Kallgren of
San Fernando. You may have already met Don, as he
came with Colin Westphal and Bob Woodward to
Georges and Marie Arseneault's meet last fall. Like
them, Don is also active in ride-on scale live steam equipment. Don says he was born loving trains, as his father
had a large collection. In addition to the very large live
steamers, Don is working on restoring and improving the
G-scale layout at the Los Angeles Live Steamers operation
at Griffith Park.
Our formerly newest member, Dave Eldridge of Goleta
called to say that he has also had a lifelong love of trains.
He has been active on and off in various small scale trains,
but came to the Siegel's Parkinson's fundraiser last year,
and got hooked on garden railroading. He doesn't have
room for a layout, and is looking forward to bringing his
trains to run at our meets. Dave says none of his family is
Canadian, so they are not closely related to Jim Eldridge.
with a fox? Would you know him in a
box? No, it isn't Dr. Seuss, but
someone almost as mysterious.
Here's a hint: He was at Gary &
Cathy Raymond's meet, moaning
about the decline of modeling in general, and garden railroading in particular, both of which were well established themes for him when I first met
him more than a dozen years ago.
A Picture is Worth How Many Words?
Roger Holcombe
of Santa Barbara
and several other
people whose
names have unfortunately gone
astray sent this
picture that has
gone all around
the world, with lots
of people adding
snide commentary, as might be imagined. It seems some firefighters in a
small town in Belgium had too much time on their hands
after a small fire. They knew that this rail line was shut
down for the week for maintenance, and one thing led to
another, as it so often does. Thanks to everyone who sent
it in.
For Sale
Richard Hanson of Camarillo is going to sell off his train
collection. He has so much that it is in a storage locker at
the airport. As soon as he sends me a list, I will include it
in the newsletter. He has a lot of great stuff.
Who Is This Unmasked Man ?
No prizes for guessing who this is because the answer is
someplace else in this newsletter. Would you know him
Power 2013 meet
Morse 2013 meet
...FIVE....
Gary & Cathy Raymond's Meet
Not too hot, not too cold, no wind to
blow the trains off the tracks. Gary &
Cathy's meet tends to draw people,
out of the wood-work, and this one
was no exception. Russ Reinberg,
the unmasked man on the previous
page, and former editor of Finescale
Railroader, dropped by to talk and talk
and pretty much ignore the trains. But
we listened attentively anyway.
Gary Raymond ran his UP Dash 8s,
with a very nice train, but not with his
Big Boy, which would have been very
modern practice this month.
and Byron's cars looked great behind
them.
Bob Uniack brought some of his world
famous scratch built Southern Pacific
Byron McCracken brought his West- sugar beet cars and ran them with
ern Pacific F3s and a long string of
various combinations of GP9s and one
passenger cars. Unfortunately, he had F7.
some sort of control issue, so the locomotives stayed on the siding all day,
Thanks to Gary's friend Wayne Gunn
while the cars were loaned out to
for the photo of Bob's triple header at
John Ryan, who also had Western
the bottom left on this page. And
Pacific F3s; but not the same unit
thanks to Gary and Cathy for another
numbers. John's engines ran well,
great meet.
Bob and Rochelle Hahn's Meet.
The heat wave broke just in time, and
we had perfect weather as we almost
always do at this time of year.
Ed Davis displayed the scratch built
model of the D&RGW 1911 Pullman-built business car known as the
Abraham Lincoln. He has spent two
years on it so far, and is not quite done
yet. He does amazing work; and it
looks gorgeous.
Crazy Charlie paired his AT&SF Atlantic with a long line of Milwaukee
Road heavyweight passenger cars.
They looked great together.
Rex Davis had a 50 ton D&RGW dies- Bob and Rochelle weren't about to let
el and a couple of cars.
us have all the fun. Bob ran his BNSF
GP60 and Rochelle had a fantasy train
Jim Eldridge brought his D&RGW
on the elevated fairy track with some
GP9 and a short train.
UP F3s on the point.
John Lyans continued the D&RGW
theme with a long train of cars behind
his Connie. One of the cars that he
was pulling was John Power's model
of a car that the D&RGW used in its
plow trains. It seems to have been
called a water car, but nobody seems
to know why. What's left of the prototype's interior looks like a crew car.
We also had nearly a dozen Eggliners.
This time we took advantage of the
wide curves and flat track by having
time trails. One Eggliner at a time, full
throttle, one lap, one chance. As
might be imagined, the times were
very close together, but Mary Heumphreus took first place.
Thanks to Ed Davis and Dennis
Randy Bryie brought his GP38 and a Paulazzo for some of these pictures.
colorful train of billboard reefers. True And thanks to Bob and Rochelle for
to form, he had one of the kids running another terrific meet.
the train, and blowing the horn.
Southern Pacific Santa Cruz Division Bridges
Gary Siegel has moved to the next stage of his layout,
namely adding bridges. John Ryan helped install them,
and sent a bazillion pictures. John says: “If you haven't
seen them in person, you must come over to check them
out. I'm very impressed by the detail and how they make
the Railroad pop.” They are all custom made, and are welded steel.
You know,the Parkinson's fundraiser on June 7 and 8
would be the perfect time to see them in person.
GCGRS Membership Application Form
Membership in the Gold Coast Garden Railway Society is open to anyone who is
interested in outdoor model railroading. Dues are $20 per year to get a printed copy of
the newsletter mailed to you; or $10 if you can take the newsletter via email. New
members, please add $6 for each name tag that you want to have. Membership runs
from January to December. Make checks payable to “Bruce Kuebler for GCGRS”.
Newsletter: Gary Olmstead
(805) 648-1770
garyolmstead@earthlink.net
Membership: Bruce Kuebler
(805) 649-3050
pbkuebler@sbcglobal.net
Bring this application and payment to any meet, or mail it to:
Bruce Kuebler
10908 Encino Dr
Oak View CA 93022-9238
First Name ___________________ Last Name: ______________________________
Spouse/Partner/Other(SPO) First Name: _______________________________
SPO Last Name, if different:__________________________________
Street Address ________________________________________________________
City ____________________________________State _____ Zip ____________
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email: __________________________________________________
I enclose $20 because I love to receive a printed newsletter in the mail
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For new members:
Would you like some help designing and/or building your layout? (Yes/No) ________
If yes, what would you like help with________________________________________
Gold Coast Garden Railway Society
10908 Encino Dr
Oak View, CA 93022-9238
Meets: Jim Eldridge
(818) 954-9809
sjeldridge@earthlink.net
Webmaster: John Albin
jtalbin@aol.com
http://www.gcgrs.com
Facebook:
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High Priestess of Facebook:
Kim Whitaker
whitdevelop@sbcglobal.net
Please put “GCGRS”
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correspondence.