Pete points to the name “Jane” stenciled on the side of the 40’ boxcar.
Most summers, My husband Pete and I take a family vacation to my sister-in-law’s cabin in Elgin, New Brunswick, Canada. And most summers, we take a vacation from the family vacation.
This year we stayed three days at the Train Station Inn of Tatamagouche. I was dubious about booking it until I found out we could stay in Boxcar Jane! One side door of the boxcar was removed and replaced with an entryway with two peopledoors. The interior walls were clad in drywall and wainscoting, but the floors appeared to be the original wood, heavily sanded and coated with gallons of polyurethane. There was a spacious living room, decent sized bedroom, small kitchen, and tiny bathroom. The only windows were above the entryway doors.
The Inn was its own little resort with a formal dining car, outdoor pub, gift and coffee shop, and lounge car. There was live music at the pub 2 of our 3 nights. It also boasts the largest collection of cabeese in Canada. Most of the cars were Canadian National, naturally.
We were there to bike a small portion of the Trans-Canada Trail. Like many trails, the quality of it varied between counties and townships.There were some remnants of the railroad, such as the Tatamagouche bridge. Not part of the RR, but the Sutherland Steam Mill was fascinating! So many ways to kill yourself at work back in the day.
If you are ever in Nova Scotia, I highly recommend the Train Station Inn!
The monthly meeting of the South Mountain Division (SMD) will be held at 2:00 PM on Sunday, 13 October at the home of Andrew Dodge in Olney, MD.Following the business meeting Andrew will discuss layout design issues which will be of special interest to those of you who are planning a layout but have not yet started construction.
The Central Maine Railway is a freelanced railroad modeled in O scale Proto 48 that operated in Maine in the late 1890s. Running between Bangor and Portland and west to a connection with the Grand Trunk Railroad, the main focus of the layout is the area between Belfast and Camden with a car float/tug operation from Camden Junction and Stonington on Deer Island. A steamship company also operates a passenger side-2 wheeler between Deer Island and Camden Junction. The layout occupies two rooms plus a staging area with a total area 1,000 square feet.
All the locomotives, cars, and buildings are scratch built. The engines are operated though radio controlled NCE hand held radio devices and operate on hand-laid track. The scenery is real dirt and stones with a hand-painted backdrop.
There are also more than a thousand hand-made trees. Of special interest, besides the ships, is the fully operational rotary snowplow, and a full-size Victorian Shingle Style “cottage.”
Also included; A small HO logging railroad with geared engines and a switchback located in North Carolina. It is 2’x8′ with a 4’x2′ leg.
A lot of things have happened Division wise over the past month. Rather than trying to address all these items in this section, I will cover each of them individually below.
Moving on – the first meeting of the 2024/2025 years was held at Rich Randall’s in Gettysburg. The turnout was rather small but those of us who were there had a good series of discussions about some of the issues facing the Division. Thanks to Rich for hosting us.
The second meeting of the program year will be held on Sunday, 13 October. We are doing pretty good on lining up meeting hosts for this year. As of this writing in addition to the October meeting we have hosts confirmed for November and January. Our most pressing need at this time is a host for the December meeting but we will welcome volunteers for any of the other scheduled meetings (February, March and May).
Finally – Don’t forget that we are in desperate need of volunteers to take over the management of your Division starting with the 2025/2026 program year and to serve on a 2027 MER convention committee (see September 2023 Wheel Report). If you might be interested, but want more information, please feel free to contact me.
Remember – this is your Division and it cannot function without your support.
2025 Mini Con
Grant Berry has agreed to take the lead on the Division Mini-Con again this coming spring (April) and Mainline Hobby Supply has again offered to support the event. It will be held on a Saturday in April but as of this writing we do not have a scheduled date from the fire company for room availability. As always, Grant will need help with registration, event set-up, and of course clinicians. Start thinking now as to what sort of table clinic you could present at the event.
The Susquehanna Division has expressed interest in participating in the event with us this coming spring but details have not been finalized. More to come on this development.
NMRA Membership Promotion
One of the topics discussed at the September meeting was the decline in Division membership. As of the last membership report from the MER we are down to a little more than 60 members (NMRA members living in our area) which is down from over 90 just a few years ago. Looking at the number of layouts on the recent Mainline Hobby Supply open house tour, and the number of people participating in the tour, it is obvious that the majority of the model railroaders in the area do not belong to the NMRA. Division member Richard Benjamin (and proprietor of HobbyTown in Frederick) has offered us the use of the meeting space in his store on 14 December to hold a promotional activity. We especially need to reach out to the younger modelers in the area. I am asking all of you for your ideas as to what type of activities we can incorporate into this event that would attract these younger people. My personal feeling is that we need to highlight the use of technology in our hobby by demonstrating things such as computer control, other forms of electronics (DCC, 3D printing, laser cutting, etc). I also think that model railroad operations can be presented as a form of gaming.
I am open to all suggestions and, of course, volunteers to make the presentations.
Bob Charles (left) and Bob Johnson review structures made by John Pursell after the annual Mini Con in April 2024. The dioramas are entries for the Achievement Program structure certificate. (Tom Fedor)
NMRA Achievement Program (AP) certificates awarded to John Purcell.
Kurt Thompson, MMR and MER AP Manager reported in The Localthat John has added Model Railroad Author and Master Builder – Structures to his list of certifications.
You can read more of John’s writing and see more of his modeling in past editions (years 2021/22 and later) of your Wheel Report <https://portal.smdnmra.org/497-2/>.
By this time I am sure you have realized that we were not able to schedule a summer activity for the Division. Several options were under consideration but none of them worked out. That failure notwithstanding, it is time to get back into our regular monthly meetings. The first of the program year will be held on Sunday, 08 September.
This coming program year will be a pivotal year for the Division. You are probably tired of hearing this from me but if we do not get more people stepping up to manage the Division and host meetings it may be necessary to declare the Division inactive as of the end of the June, 2025.
This will be my third year as Division Superintendent, and I have already announced that I will not take a fourth year. Our current Clerk (secretary), Alex Polimeni has been serving in various positions for over 8 years and I am sure he would like a break also. In addition to the officer positions there are a number of other supporting officials, named by an incoming Superintendent, that need to be filled. None of these positions require a great deal time or effort but they are all important.
Remember – this is your Division and it cannot function without your support.
Finally, we need hosts for our monthly meetings. Last year it was a struggle to find hosts for the eight meetings that were held. Several of the meetings held last year were repeat locations from the previous year. Generally, we would prefer to have a minimum of two years between visits to any given layout and ideally, we would like to see a three year break. The first two
meetings of this year (2024 / 2025) are two year repeats and as of this writing we do not have any volunteers to host any additional meetings.
Mid-Eastern Region Convention Planning
We have been officially asked to host the 2027 MER convention. The membership voted at the May 2024 meeting to accept this invitation (assuming we are still an active Division). Under the current convention protocols the MER handles a significant portion of the work involved. I would like to form a small (3 to 4 people) exploratory committee to investigate available facilities, possible prototype tour activities, etc. If you would like to participate in this endeavor please contact me at southmountaindiv@gmail.com as soon as possible.
Wheel Report Feature Articles
As previously noted, Alex Polimeni is now working with Division membership (and others) to develop feature articles, layout photo tours, written clinics, etc. to supplement the basic Wheel Report announcements. Please consider reaching out to him at southmountaindiv@gmail.com to provide content.
Remember – this is your Division and it cannot function without your support.
This is your Division and we need your help with Wheel Report features.
Hosting Meetings – another reminder!!
2024 – 2025 program year needs additional meeting hosts.
Remember – this is your Division and it cannot function without your support.
If you would like to host, please let me know. We try to avoid back-to-back repeat visits. So if you have never hosted, if it has been over a year since you did, or if you just want to show off your recent layout progress, then reach out at southmountaindiv@gmail.com.
