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The Fireman's Seat

By Robert Bell, Division 15, Assistant Superintendent

Fireman Seat
Greetings! Hope all of you had a great New Year’s. Due to some personal reasons, I am going to start writing the “Fireman’s Seat” in alternate months for a while.

Continuing where we left off in January, with more on-line resources for our modeling, www.index.mrmag.com is a great place to find what magazine issue that article you saw 30 years ago is in. Then, if you do not have it anymore, (I can’t imagine why you would have gotten rid of it), a good place to try and order the magazine is www.railpub.com.

If you are doing track work, www.railwayeng.com, is the web site for a manufacturer, but Mr. Hatch, (the owner) has a load of tips for you.

If you are just looking to buy something, check out www.walthers.com, before you order it through your local hobby shop, to see if it is currently in stock at Walthers. If it is not in stock with them, try www.caboosehobbies.com, they seem to try to stock everything. Many other hobby shops also provide a mail order service, so look in your favorite model magazine and look them up on-line.

And last, go to www.ebay.com, not just for some item that was produced thirty years ago, but for modeling ideas, photographs, and the like. A while back, I needed pictures of moose antlers for a project. I searched Ebay and “left-clicked” on several pictures with the mouse and then saved the pictures to my computer. Later, I resized them to my scale and printed them out, and used them as templates for modeling.

I will see you all here in the May “Fireman’s Seat”, and hopefully see ALL of you at the Smokey Mountain Rails that same month.

Until then, remember: It’s your club - get involved: Become a convention volunteer!

Let’s play trains!

From the Superintendent’s Desk

By Fred Coleman , Division 15, Superintendent

We are another month closer to the Smokey Mountain Rails Convention. The announcements will be coming out in Model Railroader, Trains, N-Trak newsletter, Scale Rails, and the Southerner to mention a few of the publications that have been confirmed. The Convention website is growing with the listings of events and clinicians. Also, for those that are interested the op session for the convention is now on line for registering. If you haven’t signed up for one of the many jobs needed to filled please contact us and let us know what times you will have available.

I attended the SER BOD meeting on the Feb 9 in Pensacola, FL where the 2009 Convention will be held in the Civic Center, which is across the street from an old L & N Station that is now a motel.

Our program for March will be presented by Frank Pearsall on World War I equipment which should very interesting. I hope to see you on the March 6th meeting.

Northeast Steam Tourist Trains slide show will be our program at the Feb 7th meeting by Gordon Fewster. Also there will be awards presented to several members.

Keep on the track.Semaphore Signal