Clinics

Note: This clinic starts at 9:30 AM and runs until 11:00 AM.
The focus of this clinic will be to demonstrate the four steps Dave uses to paint a backdrop. This will include setting the values for the painting, explaining atmospheric effect, making corrections, and adding highlight and accent notes.

The Club Car 2015 PCR Convention is please to provide a special clinic for Boy Scouts that wish to earn the Railroading merit badge. Scouts can complete all the requirements of the badge at this clinic. For more information on what to expect, see the dedicated webpage for full details.

Rapid prototyping or 3D printing is one of those emerging technologies which can be easily adopted by model railroaders. Draw the part that you need in 3D using SketchUp, a free software program, upload the file to a service bureau such as Shapeways, and received your finished part in the mail a couple of weeks later. This clinic will provide a beginner’s overview of how to take advantage of this new technology including video examples of drawing simple parts using SketchUp. Some sample parts will be shared that you can look at. How to upload your files will be explained. A four-page clinic handout is available online at http://www.yosemitevalleyrr.com/clinics.

Yosemite Valley Railroad modeler Jack Burgess will share nearly 100 color images of the YV taken by the late Al Rose, circa 1940-1945, in this show. These stunning, period photos will take viewers on a gorgeous trip on the YVRR from Merced to El Portal on the boundary of Yosemite National Park.

Join Guy Cantwell for a photo presentation on the construction of his "Willoughby Line" layout. The clinic compresses eleven years of construction into a short presentation. Watch as the layout grows from ground zero into a multi deck monster. Guy will show how he has approached some of the classic double-deck construction issues such as: crossing the door, lighting the lower deck, helix, supporting the upper deck, staging, etc. Check out Guy's layout and modeling at: http://thewilloughbyline.com/.

Join Guy Cantwell for an in depth clinic on building detailed rolling stock in batches. Guy will present some ideas and techniques for building a good looking fleet of freight cars quickly. Topics covered include: weathering, types of kits, tricks and techniques for assembling, detail upgrading, storage of rolling stock and more. Check out Guy's layout and modeling at: http://thewilloughbyline.com/.

The purpose of this clinic is to help you enjoy the hobby more through tips for making your freight cars operate more reliably. Topics to be covered include tools, techniques and materials, plus standards, wheels, trucks, couplers, suspension, weights, center of gravity and testing.

Track plans for passenger train oriented layouts suggest how passenger terminals and mail line layout design elements can be pulled together. Layout design elements such as turning arrangements, express and mail facilities, and coach yard requirements such as car washers, servicing platforms, Pullman and commissary buildings, and craft shops will be covered. Main line elements include junctions for merging and splitting of passenger trains. Through stations with passenger car setouts and exchanges will also be discussed.

This clinic supplements my layout design clinic and focuses on the wide variety of facilities needed to service passenger trains at terminals. It is illustrated with slides of facilities, such as coach yards, Pullman buildings, commissaries, car washers, and mail and railway express buildings. Track diagrams of large city terminals are shown. Switching of these facilities is described. A handout includes specifications on servicing platform design and utilities such as compressed air, water, and electricity.

A review of the history and construction of the Sierra Railway, good days and difficult times, the Sierra Railroad today and Railtown 1897 and some modeling thoughts.

Choosing a structure to model, making or obtaining plans, deciding on basic materials, getting started on the model: walls, roofs, bracing, windows and doors, lighting, foundation, details, painting and weathering, installing on layout.

This clinic will cover the history and theory of operations of rail detector cars. It will also describe the affects these cars have on railroad operations, both prototype and model.

The "Maker Train” is a room of show-and-tell, hands-on projects, and other activities:

• Some basic activities, such as learning about soldering techniques
• New technologies such as understanding 3D printing capabilities, trying SketchUp and 3D drawing, learning about 3D scanning and design software (ViaCad) and filament printing
• Software and electronics, including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, RFID and C/MRI electronics; and other neat stuff

What's "Maker" you ask? Check out makerfaire.com for what it's all about. Of course, our activities will have model railroading applications. Stop by and check it out!

We will discuss the history of the South Pacific Coast Railroad (1874-1906) which ran from Alameda and Oakland south to Newark, the site of the railroad's shops, and the Carter Brothers car factory, then on to San Jose, and Los Gatos and across the coast range to Santa Cruz.

Retired locomotive engineer, Tommy Johnson, relates his adventures as an AT&SF switchman and while firing steam engines on the SP including passenger service and firing back-up mallets over Tehachapi Mountain.

Retired locomotive engineer, Tommy Johnson, continues his adventures with Santa Fe and changes that came with Amtrak, female crew members, and technology.

Email from Tom Knapp “Would you consider designing an N scale version of your SF Belt Line layout for publication in N Scale Magazine?” set off a whole series of design considerations. What were still the givens and druthers? What could I do better this time? What could I add? What would I rearrange? It wasn’t exactly a total rebuild, but it was a very interesting exercise in rethinking something. And, to make it worse, I began re-thinking what I had sent Tom.

I was interested in the State Belt as a possible prototype to model long before I wrote the book, but the research influenced the layout. What did I learn and how I applied it to the layout is the subject of the clinic. I had two goals: recreating the San Francisco waterfront and realistic operations based on WWII. I made choices both about the design and about the operations to make this idiosyncratic fit into a 12’ by 12’ footprint.

Model Railroad Planning editor and Model Railroader contributing editor and "Trains of Thought" columnist Tony Koester will discuss the evolution of his basement-size, multi-deck HO railroad from the initial planning stages through design, construction, and operation. Key topics will include layout height, fluorescent vs. LED lighting, digital-photo backdrops, timetable and train-order operation, and realistic-format waybills.

Granite Rock Company, the largest locally owned and operated construction materials supplier in northern California, produces high quality granite rock aggregates, sand, concrete, and asphalt. The success of the 115 year old company is largely due to progressive quarry management practices, efficient use of narrow and standard gauge industrial and mainline railroads, and a geologic history as unique as the story of California itself.

Video presentation featuring Southern Pacific train order and DTC dispatching in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. Rare footage of the crew of Amtrak’s Coast Starlight of March 1983 and an eastbound SP freight pick up their orders on the fly. Jim Mahon, the daylight operator at Burbank Junction showing us how it was done back then. Towerman Herb Laube demonstrating the workings of the Dayton Avenue Interlocking Tower. We then get a rare look inside Los Angeles Union Station’s Terminal Interlocking Tower. The clinic concludes with a look at the Metrolink Ventura County Fair Train operations in August of 1993, showing a three train meet at the east end of Camarillo Siding.

Covers the relationship between railroads and the copper industry across North America. Mining, processing and final product delivery facilities, traffic flows and rolling stock opportunities for modeling and operations on a layout.

I recently converted my Donner Summit HO/HOn3 layout completely to Dead Rail. I removed all the track feeders and now there is no power on the rails. Trains are powered by lithium batteries and controlled by radio signals. The batteries are either in trailing box cars or dummy B units. I did the conversion in such a way that all of the existing decoders were preserved and my roster remained the same. As far as the DCC setup is concerned there has been no change. In this clinic I will discuss the pros and cons of this move and how it has effected operations both positively and negatively. I will also discuss the design and construction of the layout which is based on an HO version of the Southern Pacific and an HOn3 representation of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad. Disclaimer: I am the owner of Tam Valley Depot which manufactures and sells the DRS1 radio system discussed in the clinic.

An opportunity for SIG members (and those interested in learning more about Layout Design and Operations — membership not required to attend) to introduce themselves and their interests. The format is a round of introductions followed by moderated discussions on topics offered by the group. The first 90 minutes focuses on Layout Design issues and the second 90 minutes on operations issues. Bring your plans and mockups to share with the group! All convention attendees are welcome!

Seth and Chuck will describe their experiences designing and implementing Model Railroad Signaling Systems and how they have used the cpNode system they developed, to streamline the process. They will discuss power distribution and detection topologies, setting up signal locations, dividing the layout into blocks, cabling, cost optimization strategies and much more.

Perspective is often used to add realism to our two dimensional painted backdrops. Museum diorama builders also extend perspective to their three dimensional models as well. Although this technique is rarely used in model railroads, Kermit will show you how it can enhance your railroad's visual appeal.

The clinic will include historical background and principles of both two and three dimensional perspective. True prespective modeling is more than just placing objects of different scales behind each other in a scene. Many computer-based drafting programs include a perspective feature making it easier to produce suitable model drawings, compared to older manual drafting methods. Examples will be included to illustrate how three dimensional perspective modeling can make your layout seem much larger than it really is.

Shhh, it's a secret! Come and find out.

A tour of the newest rock salt mine in the U.S. We go 1,400 feet underground, then look at the shipping and rail operations.

In this clinic, a “signature” freight car is defined as a car which is both distinctive and also characteristic of its owning railroad, meaning that the railroad owned a significant number of these cars. Even a car which was numerous on many railroads could be a signature car for a particular railroad with a lot of them, such as the USRA box cars owned by Milwaukee Road. The clinic illustrates numerous examples, drawn from 16 of the largest railroads, and three smaller ones.

Prototype tank cars are operated in different ways than most other cars. The clinic describes these ways for the transition era, and presents model approaches to realistic waybill cycles for tank cars.