new design train model

   Morgan Turney, WMRC Program Director and organizer of our annual Klinic Karnival, also found the time to run his own clinic on how to model trees out of weeds and ordinary garden cuttings. Watching him employ his impressive skills are Bob Shawcross, our head librarian, and long time WMRC member Brent Tingey.

    Morgan is not only a talented and highly skilled modeller. He's served as president of the WMRC many times and has been our program director for several years. He's also has been the organizer of our annual spring open house. He is also the publisher of Canada's foremost model railroad magazine, Canadian Railway Modeller, now celebrating its 25th year of publication! There's nothing Morgan can't do when he puts his mind to it!

   Except when it comes to putting ketchup on a hot dog (he has some very strong opinions about that).

    All kidding aside, if there's anyone who has been proven absolutely indispensable to the club, it's Morgan! Thanks for all of your help throughout the years!

   Our most popular posts on this blog has been about Stafford Swain, a truly legendary model railroader and long time WMRC member.  The two posts about Stafford have consistently been in the top ten views, and the post title Stafford Swain - a true master model railroader, has been #1 in views for some time now, garnering almost 400 hits.
 
   Stafford's layout was dismantled shortly after it's last public showing in 2010 for the TLR's Steam on the Prairies convention in Winnipeg. A glowing tribute to Stafford and his many accomplishments was published in Canadian railway Modeller, Train 17, Track 3. With permission of the publisher, our own Morgan Turney, we are presenting the cover of this issue.

    We still have several other views of Stafford's famous layout, which we will be posting very soon.

   Paul Ullrich, long time WMRC member and blog editor, has had his second article published in Kalmbach's Classic Toy Trains Magazine this year. Both articles have appeared in their "Tips, tools and techniques" column in the back page of the magazine. His second article has been published in the July 2014 issue. Paul also has had a third article accepted, which will run later this year.

    Paul is not the only WMRC member that has been making their names in the news. Earlier this year, member Dennis Rietze had an article published in Canadian Railway Modeller (published by our own Morgan Turney) about his very unique and well crafted layout in a crawl space. The article has been published in its entirety on this blog. You can view his article by clicking here.



 

The WMRC's Dennis Rietze's amazing layout in a crawl space is featured in the latest issue of Canadian Railway Modeller. Dennis made a great looking layout, and his sheer inventiveness and ingenuity should be applauded for building it in a space that's only a claustrophobic 42" high! Dennis' layout was also featured in a spot on Breakfast Television last fall, as a promotion for the second annual Manitoba Mega Train Show.

    We will be running Dennis' article from Canadian Railway Modeller in two parts on Sunday, May 4 and Tuesday, May 6, which is being reprinted with the permission of the publisher.  You can still see the Breakfast Television video on You Tube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzyXizUqqI

It was a battle royal, a fight to the finish, a no holds barred, winner-take-all royal rumble in the basement of Whyte Ridge Baptist Church! Not since the WWE came to town has there been such a cataclysmic clash! There hasn't been such a brutal dogfight since Richthofen and Brown!

On November 2, 2013, the city's top John Allen Timesaver competitors squared off at the No. 1 Northern Division's third annual train meet. Their goal was to win the coveted gift certificate from a local hobby shop and a semi-valuable trophy. Each contestant had to shunt freight cars from one section of track to another through a maze of switches. The one who could do it in the shortest time won the prize!

First up was mighty Morgan Turney, Publisher of Canadian Railway Modeller and Acting Program Director for the WMRC. He threw in the towel after seven minutes and 50 seconds. Next up was Michael Leader, who finished in just under four minutes! Ian Plett was next, tying Michael's time.
WMRC Blog Editor Paul Ullrich was next, coming from way behind with a score for 12 minutes (and he was the one who designed the configuration for the competition).

Ian and Michael faced off in the finals. Michael picked up speed in the second round, edging out Ian with a new record time of just over three minutes! The semi-coveted trophy and the gift certificate was awarded to Michael by No. 1 Northern Superintendent Dennis Rietze.

Some of you might've noticed that we now have an image from a model railroad on our site's masthead.  We surely needed a visual presence there. After all, this is a blog about the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club!

When it came to selecting an image, the choice was obvious - it had to be from Stafford Swain's layout!
Stafford was a true model railroading pioneer. His layout of the CNR Whiteshell Division was a museum quality creation of the real thing. He started building his layout in 1975, when prototype modelling was a rarity, and scenery techniques were pretty basic.

He's had over 80 articles published in magazines such as Model Railroader, Mainline Modeller and Railroad Model Craftsman. He's MMR #98. He helped found the CN Lines SIG (now the Canadian National Railway Historical Association), was president of the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club and the TLR, and was the Convention Director for the 1983 NMRA national convention held in Winnipeg.

Sadly, his layout is no more. The layout was dismantled shortly after it's last public showing in 2010 for the TLR's Steam on the Prairies convention in Winnipeg. A glowing tribute to Stafford and his many accomplishments has been published in Canadian railway Modeller, Train 17, Track 3. Besides this site, you can also read about Stafford at WMRC member John Longhurst's Manitoba and Minnesota Subdivision blog at http://cprailmmsub.blogspot.com/ 

This site will continue to post further images of Stafford's layout in the future.

Morgan Turney, Publisher of Canadian Railway Modeller and Winnipeg Model Railroad Club acting program director put on a great clinic on how to make realistic rock cuts using ceiling tiles at the No. 1 Northern's third annual train meet. Below are some images of Morgan showing how it's done.

For more information about the NMRA's No. 1 Northern Division go to: http://pullrich.wix.com/numberonenorthern

   The NMRA's No. 1 Northern Division held their third annual train meet on Saturday, November 2 at Whyte Ridge Baptist Church in Winnipeg. This year, the group focused on "hands-on" clinics and demonstrations. Winnipeg Model Railroad Club President Larry Leavens showed how to make static grass by using an improvised hand held bug zapper that you could buy at any home improvement store for under ten dollars (genuine static grass makers usually sell for well over ten times that much).

   WMRC acting program director and Canadian Railway Modeller publisher Morgan Turney demonstrated how to make realistic rock faces with ceiling tile. No. 1 Northern superintendent Dennis Rietze conducted a clinic on DCC. A workshop on how to ballast a track was conducted, with a prize of a gift certificate from a local hobby shop for who did the best job.

   Members could also compete for a hobby shop gift certificate using a John Allen Style "time-saver" module to see who could shunt freight cars to their assigned destination the fastest. The winner was the No.1 Northern's youngest member, 10 year old Michael leader, who beat most of our veteran members by a very wide margin!

    Below is the first in a series of photos taken at this event. Others will be published in future posts.

This article first appeared in the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's official publication, The Lantern.  In order to attract a broader audience, this website will occasionally post selected articles and images originally published in The Lantern.

By Morgan Turney

   There was a time - during the early 1930s - when the three prairie provinces boasted about 5,750 wooden grain elevators. Every hamlet, village, town and city had at least one grain elevator located on 'Railway Street'. A town's prosperity was measured by the number of grain elevators it had. As the years have gone by these icons of prairie life have been torn down, one at a time. Few are saved: in Manitoba, the only elevators that are safe are the five which have been preserved at Inglis.

   I caught wind that the Paterson elevator at Marquette was undergoing demolition. Railfan friend, Felix Lesiuk, had been out railfanning the Carberry subdivision between Winnipeg and Portage la Prairie on Monday, September 2nd and stopping at Marquette, noticed that the grain annex, metal holding bins and the elevator office were all torn down and the backhoe on site had broken through the centre of the elevator and pulled down most of its interior. That was an obvious clue that likely the following day would see the elevator collapse.

   I arrived at the site around 9:40 the next day and found the backhoe chewing away at the base of the elevator. I asked one of the workers nearby when he thought the structure would collapse. He looked at his watch, glanced up and looked at the backhoe's progress, then looked at his watch again and said, "Oh, in about 8 minutes." And 8 minutes later, down she came!

   I don't need to tell you how sad it is to see these structures disappearing. It's even sadder when you witness one falling. As Felix said after I showed him my photos, "The village of Marquette is now boring."

What a party! 1,700 people showed up at the CanLan Ice Sports Centre to see the show! And what a show it was! There were layouts of virtually every popular scale, from N to G and the 7 1/2" gauge Mega Train that went around the whole show! There was also face painting, balloon animals, and lots of vendors offering lots of deep discounted bargains!

It was very gratifying to see so many young families and children attending the show, and loving every minute of it. It was not uncommon for many families to spend several hours at the show (mostly at their kid's insistence). Everywhere you looked, you saw a happy kid with a painted face holding a Railfan Canada trading card!

There were modular layouts from WinNtrak and the NMRA #1 Northern Division's Free-Mo Group.
Commercial vendors included Warehouse Hobbies, Toad Hall Toys, Spare Time Hobbies, Vector Garden Trains, and representatives from Canadian Railway Modeller and Railfan Canada Magazines.

The Winnipeg Model Railroad Club would like to thank all of its many volunteers for helping out during set up, take down, working at the admissions desk and displaying at the Manitoba Mega Train Show.