Winnipeg Model Railroad Club mourns passing of past President Ed Mulholland

Former WMRC President Ed Mulholland passed away on November 13. Ed served two terms as President from 1990 to 1996, and was a great force in the model railroading community.  He was also responsible for getting the club into their present meeting location at the Charleswood Legion. He was also a member of the Assiniboine Valley Railway.

Ed was a retired school teacher. One of his students was WMRC member and former club librarian Bart Hasselfield, who had him as a teacher when he went to High School in Deloraine.
He built some spectacular layouts in his Charleswood home. His most memorable layout was the Cumbrian Mountain Lines, an N scale railway modelled after his childhood home of Northern England. He painstakingly modelled many structures and location which he first photographed himself on one of his many visits to his homeland. His layout was featured on CBC radio on Ron Robinson’s weekend morning show.

Ed was also a champion lawn bowler. He was along time member of the Tuxedo Lawn Bowling Club. He was their head coach, chief umpire and committee chairman. He and Brenda Frank were the Manitoba Mixed Pairs Champions, who competed of a national title at the Qualicum Beach Lawn Bowling Club in British Columbia.
 

Exclusive photos of Ed Mulholland's N gauge layout of northern England

For one of the club's monthly on-line photo displays, WMRC program director Dave Downie submitted three images from Ed Mulholland's spectacular N gauge layout. Ed, a retired school teacher who was born and raised in northern England, painstakingly recreated many scenes of his birthplace in his layout. He fully researched and photographed each structure and scene during his annual trips to his homeland. 

Ed's layout was even featured on CBC Radio (yes, radio) on Ron Robinson's weekend morning show. Sadly, this layout is no more, as Ed decided to switch scales and build an even more spectacular layout in HO gauge.

See Ed Mulholland's Cumbrian Valley Lines and take a trip to Budapest at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's November meeting

We have a great show lined up for our November meeting! Ed Mulholland will showcase his Cumbrian Valley Lines layout, one of most spectacular layouts ever built in Winnipeg. Then Tommy Kucera will make a presentation about his visit to the Hungarian National Railway Museum in Budapest. 

The fun starts this Friday, November 8, at 7:30 PM in the Tank Room at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. The canteen will be open and we'll have our monthly model display.Not a member? Not a problem! Guests are always warmly welcomed.

Winnipeg Model Railroad Club mourns passing of Bill "Tiny" Summers

We are saddened to announce that former WMRC member William "Tiny” Summers passed away last week. Tiny served as the club’s annual spring show chairman in 1994. He was also a member of the Vintage Locomotive Society. 

Tiny was proud to have fired CPR steam locomotives during the 1950s. He served his country in Korea and drove countless miles as a truck driver for Canada Safeway. Tiny hauled produce from California and Texas and visited hobby stores on the way back to Winnipeg. He was a regular at the Thursday night get togethers at Golden Spike and at Ware House Hobbies. 

Tiny also assisted the Winnipeg Police Service in the 1960's, as he was a qualified diver, recovering bodies from the Red River. He survived a serious truck accident with on the Winnipeg to Thompson run. He survived necrotising fasciitis, also known as the flesh eating disease, and was kidded that he survived was that there was so much of him. 

He’s been described as a jolly giant, although he could be pretty gruff at times. He was a huge man, standing about 6’ 6”, and weighing well over 300 pounds.  At the WMRC spring train show in 1995, he sat on a flimsy plastic chair that couldn’t hold his weight, and he and the chair went crashing down onto the floor! Ed Mulholland, who was club president at the time, salvaged a piece of the broken chair, mounted it, and presented it to Tiny at the annual banquet as the “first annual chairman award”.

Tiny is survived by his wife Barbara, daughters Debbie, Wendy, Kathy, Donna, and Maureen, his stepchildren Brenda and Ron, 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. By Bill's request there will be no service. 

Ed Mulholland's layout showcased at Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's March meeting

At this Friday's meeting, former WMRC President Ed Mulholland will give us a presentation on his N scale Cumbrian Mountain Lines layout, which is considered to be one of the finest model railroads ever built in Winnipeg. The presentation will feature prototype videos and slides of this layout, with Ed describing its construction and operation.

The layout replicated Britain's famous Settle & Carlisle Railway and Ed modelled the line in very fine and accurate detail. His layout was probably the world's most complete model of this historic line. Ed's layout was prominently featured in model railroad magazines in Britain and in North America, and was even showcased one morning on CBC radio. This layout has since been dismantled for another that Ed is currently working on. He will be giving us quick preview of that layout, too.

Our March 13 meeting starts at 7:30PM in the Tank Room of the Charleswood Legion at 6003 Roblin Boulevard. The Tank Room is located in basement of the Legion. Please enter on the west side of the building.

The Assiniboine Valley Railway is rolling again this weekend!

   We are very pleased to announce that the Assiniboine Valley Railway is having their next open house this weekend. The trains will be running from 1PM to 4PM on both Saturday and Sunday at 3001 Roblin Boulevard.

    Last weekend, they held their first winter open house since the passing of their founder, the late great Bill Taylor, in August of 2013. Outside of former WMRC President Ed Mulholland's announcement of the AVR's forthcoming open houses at the WMRC's December meeting, there was virtually no publicity for the event (not even a mention on their own website).

    The day after the WMRC's December meeting,  the news was posted on this blog site and on the WMRC's Facebook page. The FB notice got 500 views in just a few hours! Watching the numbers come in was like watching the gas gauge at the pump turn while you're filling up your car! This shows not only the power of social media, but of the interest in the AVR itself!

    We sent our top investigative reporter out to the AVR open house to cover the event last Sunday. As you can see by the photographic evidence, it was business as usual at the AVR! They had steady and respectable crowds on both days, and they're hoping for the same this coming weekend.

    And they'll certainly get that! Another FB post about the AVR on the WMRC's Facebook page has garnered over 4000 views and 50 shares! AVR President Len LaRue was on CBC Radio One's noon program on Wednesday, They gave him a full ten minutes to promote the event! He was also on the CBC 24 Hours supper time news show that night, and the evenwas also promoted on the noon hour radio news on boxing day.

    Riding the AVR at Christmas has become an important Winnipeg traditions for many Winnipeg families. Although the lights aren't up and there are no evening runs, people still want to ride the trains through the forest! And there's still plenty of deers to see while you're enjoying the ride!

All about the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's new location at the Charleswood Legion

Starting in September, we will have a new place for our monthly meetings - the Charleswood Legion Hall at 6003 Roblin Boulevard. You can't miss it - it has a tank on the grounds!

We'll be meeting in the Tank Room, in the basement of the hall. The door on the west side of the building provides the best access.

This new meeting place holds many advantages over our previous location. It's on a main road, and very easy to find. It also promises to be a lot warmer location. Our past two locations have been in church gymnasiums. Although the club has been very grateful for the use of these locations, a lot of our members found them to be uncomfortably cold in the winter (The blower fans were on the ceiling, heat rises).

As an added bonus, members will no longer have to take their winter shoes off! Leave your slippers at home!

The legion hall is not in a central location (although one of our members live right across the street from it), but it's still relatively easy to get to from most parts of the city. Members living in the Kildonans or the northwest part of the city can take the Perimeter Highway. A short cut can be taken by going down Brookside Boulevard then onto Centre Point Canada Way (It is much faster).

However, it is a lot farther from our beloved Santa Lucia Pizza on St. Mary's Road, but there's another location close by at 2029 Portage Avenue, right between William Clement Parkway and Route 90!

The WMRC wishes to thank our Past President Ed Mulholland for finding this new location. Way to go, Ed!