Union Pacific releases its Big Boy summer schedule

Union Pacific has just announced its schedule for their legendary 4-8-8-4 steamer, also known as "Big Boy". There have been occasions where the mighty brute has traveled as close to Winnipeg as Fargo, North Dakota. Unfortunately, it won't be getting that close this year, as its main destination is Ogden, Utah, where it will participate in the 150 anniversary celebrations of the golden spike in May.

The Big Boy will travel from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Ogden and back, with stops in Rock Springs, Rawlins, Laramie and Evanston. For more information, you can go to the Union Pacific website by clicking here.

Felix Lesiuk's winter grafitti gallery

Our prolific rail photographer Felix Lesiuk took another rail fanning trip with Louis Lenz on March 7. They headed West on a Thursday to try to catch the VIA Canadian, since both the east and westbounds run on Thursday. But both were many hours late.  They made it as far West as Moffat. Traffic was light on CN, but they saw more CP trains than normal.

But what Felix did catch was an amazing array of graffiti on some of the rolling stock, which is what we’re featuring on this post. Some of the work is very intricate, and quite fascinating. It’s amazing how the graffiti taggers manage to do what must be very time consuming work without getting caught!

Learn all about Arduinos and 3D printing at Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's March meet

The WMRC two great clinics lined up for our March 2019 meeting. For our first clinic, Tyler Fedoroshyn will demonstrate building mainline signalling from scratch using an Arduino. Tyler is building a home layout and he'll explain what his signals can do, how they detect trains, what it takes to install them and he'll provide a high level rundown of the computer code used to program the Arduino.

Tyler will also provide a quick glimpse into three other unique Arduino projects he's done,  such as an automatic defect detector, a belt pack throttle, and his latest simulator project.

For our second clinic, Kent Hurley will conduct a demonstration about 3D printing using a 3D home printer.  This clinic was also presented at the 2018 NMRA National Convention. Learn what 3D printing can do for you and see how easy it can be to get started.

The meeting starts at 7:30PM on Friday, March 8, in the Tank Room at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. Wheelchair accessible. The canteen will be open, and we'll have a 50/50 draw and our monthly model display. Not a member? Not a problem! Guests are always warmly welcomed!