Winnipeg Model Railroad Club holds another great clinic carnival and Christmas hot dog banquet

WMRC President John Bate conducts a clinic on Arduino animation and all of the fun things you can do with it, while Murray Brown and Bart Hasselfield look on.

What a great Christmas party we had on Friday the 13th! Rod Sarna, John Bate, Larry Leaven, Ian Plett and Marvin Fetch put on five great clinics for our annual clinic carnival while our members and distinguished guests feasted on expertly prepared gourmet hot dogs prepared by our master chef Mark McLellan! We even had a few former members, such as Ian and Zenon Lisakowski, drop by and join in on the fun!

The two Ians meet at last! Former member Ian Lisakowski watches WMRC program director Ian Plett conduct his model weathering clinic. 

Rob Sarna conducts his clinic on how to install a NixTrainz Decoder Buddy replacement board, a Soundtraxx decoder and speaker into an Atlas HO locomotive. Tony Prud'homme, owner of the Frog and Diamond Hobbyworks shows off his spiffy hoodie as he watches.

Long time members Tommy Kuchera (R)  and Marcel Blair watch Larry Leavens conduct a clinic on how to control a Tortoise switch machine from opposite sides of a layout with a simple circuit.

Marvellous and well seasoned Marvin Fetch conducted a clinic on how a seasoned model railroader constucts a building.

An inventive new "no duck-under" design for modular layouts

 Unless you're really into limbo dancing, there's no need to duck under this back saving design!

Our good friend Zenon Lisakowski sent us this link to a terrific new blog titled Rupert's Insights.
It's done by Rupert James,  a CPA living in Regina, Saskatchewan and an avid model railroader who is a member of the Echo Valley Railroad Guild, who displayed at last year's Manitoba Mega Train Show. 

In this post, he displays his "no duck-under" drawbridge design that he created and built for his club's modular group, and he attests that it's quite the back saver! Read all about his creation by going to Rupert's Insights.

Darryl Audette builds a model railroad display at Toad Hall

Zenon Lisakowski, one of our intrepid roving reporters, was dispatched to Toad Hall Toys recently to check out the spectacular work that Darryl Audette has been doing on the model railroad display that he has created there. The Z-man even lent a hand in the modelling! Darryl, who is a professional theatrical set designer, has had this layout featured in the pages of Metro News Winnipeg earlier this month. 

This image was taken in the middle of construction, but the display is up and running, and it’s worth your while to go downtown to check it out during the holiday season! While you’re there, check out their new expanded model railroad department, which sells all gauges. There's free parking on Thursday and Friday evenings after 6:00PM, and all day on Saturday. WMRC members get at 10% discount on all non-sale in-store model railroad items (but you gotta show them your membership card first!).

Toad Hall Toys is located at 54 Arthur Street, in the middle of Winnipeg’s historic exchange district. Until December 24th, they’re open from 9:30AM to 9:00PM Monday to Friday, Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00AM to 5:00PM.

Watch Backtracks: A video about Winnipeg's streetcar history

   Here's something our good friend Zenon Lisakowski sent us. it's a locally produced retrospective film on Winnipeg's  streetcar system. It's well stacked with archival photos and old film footage. This 30 minute film, produced by Jeff McKay and Beth Azore, was originally commissioned for television broadcast by MTS Cable and  has also been screened at Winnipeg's Cinematheque. Click here to enjoy the film!

A BNSF SD40-2 built entirely out of Lego

Here's something our good friend Ian Lisakowski sent us from the Friends of BNSF website. Dennis Glassker, a Dutch modeller, built a detailed BNSF SD40-2 out of Lego blocks. And it's huge! It's built at 1:16 scale, it's 52 inches long and weighs 44 pounds. Just to put that size in perspective, LGB G scale trains are 1:22 scale. He even modeled the interior! Check out his work at:https://www.friendsofbnsf.com/content/BNSF-locomotive-model-Legos