Everything from G to Z at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's November meeting

We had two wildly different sized models submitted for the club's monthly model display, held on Friday, November 18 at the Charleswood Legion. 

Gino Kost brought in a massive G gauge Burlington switcher. He installed a RailPro decoder and changed the incandescent bulbs to LEDs. He wired the battery powered lighting for track power and installed a speaker.

Richard Mikolayenko modelled a water tower and a coaling station in Z gauge, the smallest scale in model railroading. He hand painted all pieces of the water tower, and painted the water tank, the roof vents, and the trim of he coaling station. It was assembled and weathered with a mild black wash.

We couldn't resist posing the models together to emphasize the size difference. Those models Richard built could be used for a G gauge garden railway! 
 

This month Dave Ackmann of St. Louis, Missouri will make a presentation about automating CAD generators in 3D printing for Model Railroading. Dave will show us that CAD is not the only way to design structures.

3-D printing can be a real game changer for modelling, but CAD is difficult to learn. There are better ways, and Dave Ackmann created six of them, called “Generators”.

   When Dave wanted to create shake shingle roofing, he realized that such an “organic” shape was just a bunch of rectangles with random variations in size and placement. Dave has a background in computer science, and he wrote a program that runs under Microsoft Windows to collect the specifications for the roof he wanted. His program then created a CAD file that met the requirements, and when the file was post-processed in OpenSCAD, a 3D model was created.

The fun begins on Friday, November 18 at 7:00 PM at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Blvd. The canteen will be open, and we will have our usual model and photo displays and a 50/50 draw.

There are no longer any COVID related restrictions at the Legion. The meeting will also be broadcast on Zoom. Guests are always warmly welcomed, but If you are not a member and wish to view the presentation on Zoom please email just at wmrc.trainclub@gmail.com and we will send you a link.
 

Winnipeg Railway Museum signs 25 year lease with Via Rail

Great news! The Midwestern Railway Association has signed a 25 year lease with VIA Rail to allow the Winnipeg Railway Museum to stay in their current location at Union Station in Winnipeg. Now that the lease has been secured the museum will be looking at getting grants to upgrade the building to meet code requirements for an occupancy permit. 

This may involve some structural changes to the Gateway to meet code. At this point there are no details on what has to be done. As the museum is still under renovations, there is no access to the club’s Gateway Western Railway at this time.