Happy New Year.

The Gandy Dancer The Official Publication of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society

January 2007

Upcoming Public Operation Sessions:

Spring Home and Garden Show

Good Guys Spring Show

Club News

Unofficial January Meeting Minutes

Vice-President Bill Wills called the meeting to order 8:00 PM, Jan 5, 2007

Approximately 30 members attended the meeting.

Treasurers report.
We still have money. See Paul for details.
Move to accept, Dan. 2nd Henry. Report unanimously accepted

Dues are due and payable, and become overdue and subject to penalty in Feb.
Paul will be available at all January meetings for dues payments; those unable to make a meeting may remit via USPS to Paul's address,
provided via e-mail earlier this week.

Applications received from and prospective members introduced:

• Carl Chow
• Randy Chow, (jr)
• Alfred Perrques
• Gunther Hossner
• Peter Lotzmann

February Meeting

The general business meeting will be held on February 2nd. Big Bertha will remain cold this month.

2007 Dues

2007 Dues are due. If, for some reason, you have not paid yet. See Paul and renew your membership. Annual dues are still $24.

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HO Scale News:

New DCC Enclosure to be installed

As noted in the schedule above the new enclosure for the new DCC boosters will be installed on Friday, January 26th. While this work is underway, DCC will be unavailable, and the operating session will be Analog for that evening. Please note, if the crew are successful in completing the installation early enough, there may be some limited testing of the revamped DCC installation later in the evening.

Plans call for stress testing the new installation with heavy loads of large lashups of locomotives, sound equipped locomotives and cars and lighted passenger cars operating simultaneously on the layout on Friday, February 2 and February 9. Members are encouraged to bring down equipment to help with the stress testing of the installation.

This testing should allow us to have a more trouble free DCC operating session on Sunday of the Home & Garden Show.

Home & Garden Show signup sheet available

Members are reminded that sign up sheets for the Home & Garden Show are available upstairs, for this event falling on Saturday, February 17th (Analog) and Sunday, February 18th (DCC).

Track Repair

There was a short section of track that was damaged in the auto plant lead. The section of track was repaired by Bob Johnson with assistance by Randy and Carl Chow. The auto plant lead has been returned to service.

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From the HO Trainmaster:

Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a good holiday. Well its time to get started working on the layout again. The following is a list of projects. Some of the projects have been approved while others are in the planning stage leading to the approval vote. Projects without names need volunteers (Hint, Hint).

Approved

1. Power drops on each piece of track - Karl, Andy, Paul
2. DCC booster - Pat and John
3. Hidden yard door - Seth, Paul
4. Subway - Seth, Garrett
5. Port project - Gary, Dean, Dennis

Planning Stage

1. Double end the hidden yard
2. X-10 controllers to control the power and lights
3. Moving vehicles on the elevated road bed - Paul Newhouse to demonstrate
4. Self contained logging route - Bob Hopkins, Garrett
5. The used of web cams instead of the video switcher to increase the number of cameras on the layout.

Maintenance

1. Layout lighting power districts - Tony, Jim

So there is a lot to get involved in. If you would like to work on one of the projects that already have people working on it just contact them. If you want to get involved with one of the others please contact me.

Thanks,
Seth

HO Scale Trainmaster

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O Scale News:

From the O Scale Trainmaster:

Hey gang-

Current activities on the club's O-scale layout have included an upgrade and extension of the trolley line to give better exposure of this facet of model railroading. The extension (thanks to the efforts of Henry Chandler with some assistance from others) will serve the packing house among other things. The upgrade (thanks to the efforts of Dick Stark with some assistance and criticism (?) from others) improves the backdrop and the buildings around and behind the upper trolley loop. This area has been in need of refurbishment for a long time and things are definitely looking better. All of this is planned for completion by the next county fair show.

A general clean up of the under-the-layout area is an ongoing effort which will help locate parts and supplies that have been "buried" and will be of need when the above-mentioned upgrade and extension is scenicked.

Thanks to Linda Bissum, a new version of the O-scale layout track plan has been created.

We currently have a second-Sunday-of -the-month working party in operation during which some of the above items are being attended to as well as other items which pop up.

I would like to remind all club members (HO- and O-scalers alike) that we need to be vigilant in disposing of soda cans, left-over food wrappers, etc., in the garbage outside so that we keep unwanted "visitors" away from the layout premises. One of these critters must have been a really tough customer, since it ate at least one and a half boxes of "D-Con" as well as some of the lichen on the scenery before succumbing in the drip pan of the refrigerator.

-George

O Scale Trainmaster

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General Hobby and Prototype News

O Scale West

O Scale West meet dates (February 15th - 17th, 2007) at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara in Santa Clara, CA..

WinterRail set for March

WinterRail, the annual gathering of West Coast railfans is set for Saturday, March 10, 2007, celebrating its 29th year. The 2007 installment will be held at the

Stockton Scottish Rite Center
33 W. Alpine Ave,
Stockton, CA

Tickets are now available! $30.00 each

Details on the event are available from the official WinterRail site. Specific questions not answered by a sister site with lodging information and directions should be routed to:

Winterail 2007 - Vic Neves
P.O. Box 1627
San Leandro, CA 94577

or you can e-mail Vic at winterail at comcast dot com.

Niles Canyon Steam Fest.

The Niles Canyon Railway is hosting a TRIPLE TANK STEAM FEST on Saturday & Sunday March 17 & 18, 2007
The event is planned to celebrate the return to service of the Robert Dollar No. 3 an 0-6-0T built by ALCo in 1927.
Other locomotives participating in the event include Quincy Railroad No. 2, another 2-6-2T built by Alco in 1924
and Granite Rock No. 10, an 0-6-0T built by Porter in 1942.

Saturday morning will feature a triple header pulling a Harriman passenger train. Tickets for Saturday are $75 for all day
and $49 for either morning or afternoon. Tickets on Sunday will be $15 each. Advance ticket purchase for Saturday is recommended.

Additional information is available on the Niles Canyon Railway website.

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The Gandy Dancer, a monthly publication of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society.
Last updated February 14, 2007.

Unless otherwise noted, this web page and all images and information it contains are
Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Alameda County Central Railroad Society. All Rights Reserved.
For more information, email Dan Espinosa at:
steelnomad2002 at yahoo dot com.