Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, January 9, 2016
9:00 AM
Location
Haddon Township High School
406 Memorial Ave.
Westmont, NJ 08108
Categories
As has become customary, the Philadelphia and New Jersey Divisions will join forces to cohost their mid-winter meet at the Haddon Township High School cafeteria in Westmont, New Jersey. The date is January 9, 2016 and the time is 9:00am with doors opening at 8:30am. This time there are two very interesting clinics planned for your enrichment and enjoyment.
First, Jersey member Ed Sproles will present a clinic titled: “Build Your Own Resistance Wheelsets.” In this clinic, Ed will describe the process of building resistance wheelsets via PowerPoint presentation, including exam-ples of his work as well as a live demonstration of the process.
Locomotives, as well as rolling stock with lighting, such as a passenger car or caboose, draw power from the rails that can be used to electronically sense occupancy on a particular segment of track and relay that information to various electronic systems. But what about track occupation detection for other rolling stock such as freight cars? Modelers of modern day operations no longer use cabooses. Resistance wheelsets provide the answer. When these are used on any freight car or piece of rolling stock, a small amount of current flows from one rail to the other through the wheelset, thereby providing the power to effect occupation detection. Two applications among many others could be lighted railroad crossing signals or signaling systems. Other applications may be discussed.
Next, Philly member Bill Fagan will present “Cab Rides of South Jersey Model Railroads.” Bill, who serves as Philadelphia Division’s videographer, will show videos of some South Jersey layouts he recorded whereby attendees will take virtual “cab rides” accompanied by narration by the layout owner.
Using miniature cameras mounted on a flat car in front of the locomotive, Bill has developed a successful technique of capturing a unique view of a model railroad. While on one hand allowing viewers to become 1:87 scale engineers in the cab, this also enables close-up observation of the layout’s track plan, scenery, structures, and operation. This proves not only to be entertaining, but particularly helpful in assessing the quality of the layout owner’s workmanship. And no doubt there’ll be some laughs as we observe “prototype”-sized people (often with big guts) diving out of the way of the camera.
Both clinics will provide time for a Q&A to address your needs for further information.
And then, what is a Jersey meet without all the other stuff? It’ll be there…the contest, the coffee and donuts, the camaraderie, and the swap tables, too, and don’t forget that the Friday Night Layout Tour is back! If you want the maps and directions, drop an email to Bob Clegg at bobcatCS@comcast.net and you will receive them by return email. Just put “Friday Night Tour” in the subject line.
For more meet details, please consult the New Jersey Division website at http://www.njdivnmra.org. Here is a direct link to the January Clinkers, the Jersey newsletter.
