Celebrating 20 years of model railroading

As of this writing we have been accepted to attend this show with a $100 honorarium. We have not received the information on when we can setup. We are hoping we can setup on Friday evening after 5 pm. As soon as we receive the info the club will send out an e-mail and a phone call to everyone to let them know. We do have a signup sheet for this event in the club room so please signup so we can have a head count. The business meeting will be right after setup.

Not quite sure what happened but we lost our domain name. I thought I had paid it but I guess I didn't. Chris is working on creating a new one. So PPNG.org no longer works to contact the club.

We have been accepted to attend this show. We will load the MTL around noon on Friday February 19, 2010. There is a signup sheet for this event in the club room so please signup so we can get a head count. Hopefully by next writing we will have the show hours.

We need a minimum of five people to attend this fun show. We will load the MTL on Friday morning March 19, 2010 and head for Garden City. Show times are as follows Saturday 10 am to 6 pm and Sunday 11 am to 4 pm with tear down following closing. We will head back to Colorado on Monday morning. For motel reservations we usually stay at the Continental Inn - 1-800-621-0318. They now provide a free continental breakfast. Reserve for three days -Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights

If anyone who did not get a chance to ride the Royal Gorge train the club has 9 tickets to use before they expire. If anyone is interested in utilizing these tickets the cost is $49.25 each. This is the group discount price. They can only be used on a weekend. Contact Mike Peck so he can make the arrangements for you.

On my trips to Iowa I was told about something I had never heard about before. A crossing of two railroads controlled by STOP signs, yes STOP signs. I did observe that the trains that went through town all stopped at these signs before proceeding on.

Looking east at the crossing	same crossing with a train

A little history lesson here. The Milwaukee built the first tracks into Emmetsburg, IA in 1878. This was an east - west line. The north - south line was built by the Rock Island Line in 1882 on the east side of town. The east - west line in 1991 was owned and operated by the SOO Line this changed over the years to UP, IC&E (Iowa, Chicago & Eastern) and DM&E (Detroit, Minnesota & Eastern) and is now owned by CP Rail. The north - south line in 1991 was Chicago North Western and is now UP. With the construction of a soy bean plant and an ethanol plant both lines carry beans and corn to the plants. This was the first year I observed 100 car or longer trains on these two branch lines. There are still shorter trains daily anywhere from 10 to 60 cars. More on this next month.

This is a new feature to the news letter. I should have added it years ago. As those of you who attend the club meetings know the club has been operating on a deficit for the last 5 years or so. We have been pulling the extra money out of the club car account to make ends meet. We are in a lot better shape than the Federal Government. We will be working on this problem over the next few months. For those of you working on layouts and need scenery material the club has a few packages at good prices just ask to see if we have what you need. We used up all the ballast material to do the yards. For those of you with stacks of magazines we have magazine holders. For all new electrical connections you should start using the Anderson Power Polls which the club has for sale at a $1.00 a set. If you are doing DCC you really need to use the Power Polls. You can shop around to find a cheaper price and you can but you have to purchase a few hundred to get the discount. Let us know we'll even teach you how to install them.

At the corporate meeting Ron announced that as of January 1, 2010 Train Showcase will be part of the Old Time Toys store. If you had any orders with Ron before he sold the store you can setup an appointment with him to get your trains. All other stock has been transferred to the new store. The new store is located at 3123 N. Hancock Av, phone number (719) 227-7436. The new owner is Jim Bageman.

East bound gondola scrap train	west bound empty grain cars

The above gondola train is mostly used for track maintenance and is usually full of old ties or scrap metal from along the ROW. This one happened to be empty. The only reason I added the empty grain train photo is this was the first time I had ever seen a BNSF car go by my mother -in-laws house. The people in Iowa get about as excited about a grain car train as we do about a coal train.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010