trendy train model

   Robert Weaver, editor of The Lantern the official publication of the WMRC, has won the club's prestigious President's Shield award for 2015.

    Robert has been the editor of The Lantern since September of 2009. This fall, he will be entering his ninth season of being the editor, which is a record for our 60 year old club.

    Besides his editing duties, Robert also is in charge of the club's monthly model display. He photographs each model submitted and compiles an article with the written descriptions of the submitters for The Lantern.

     Robert has also initiated more reader participation by holding a monthly photo contest for the cover of The Lantern. The winner gets their image published on the cover and also receives a cash prize. Robert has also handed over the task of deciding who receives the annual Lantern award by having the membership vote for their favorite contributor. Robert distributes, collects, and counts the ballots at the April meeting. The winner is announced next month at the annual banquet.

    Robert has also presided over the complete digitization of the Lantern. All members now receive a PDF version in full colour of The Lantern via email. The publication has come a long way from the mimeographed stencil version in the 50's!

    Robert has also contributed countless articles to The Lantern over the years. He has announced that next season will be his last year as Editor of The Lantern. He's going to leave some mighty big shoes to fill!

    

   

    Heads up, WMRC members! You only have a couple of days to meet the deadline for the March photo contest! Because of the short month of February, the deadline is midnight on Tuesday, March 3, so if you have a railroad photo that captures Lantern Editor Robert Weaver's theme of "Essence of Velocity" (think speed - zoom, zoom, zoom!) Send it to him by then!

   The winner will get their image on the cover of The Lantern (the official publication of the WMRC). They will also receive a minimum cash prize of $15. But if we receive 10 entries or more, the prize money doubles to $30!

    

     Every month the WMRC holds a model display. All members are invited to bring whatever they've been working on to the meeting and put it on the table for everyone to see. This is a display, not a competition. A cash prize is awarded, but the winner is selected by random.

    The minimum cash prize is $15. If there are ten entries from ten different members, the cash award goes up to $30.
     The WMRC is very proud of our member's creations, and every model in the monthly display is featured in The Lantern (the official publication of the WMRC) and as often as possible on the WMRC blog site.
 
   Aaron Woloshyn's car started its life the same way that the prototype likely did, as a bulkhead flatcar. He stripped all of the hardware off of one end and removed the whole bulkhead. Then he moved the bulkhead about a fifth of the way into the car and cemented it to the deck. The buttresses supporting it and side structures were made from Styrene. The ladders on the flat end are the ladders that used to be on the bulkhead.

   He painted it with a red/orange colour that  is pretty close to CN colours, the decals came from various locomotive and rolling stock sets. Then he weathered it and made a load from Atlas track.
The prototype can be seen below. That's a pretty good match!

WMRC Lantern editor Robert Weaver would like to remind all members that this month's photo contest deadline is fast approaching! You have until midnight, February 3 (that's next Tuesday) to submit a railway scene that best expresses the cold weather. The winning entry will have their image put on the cover of the February issue of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC. If we get 10 entries, the prize award doubles from fifteen to thirty dollars!

   Long time WMRC member Morgan Turney won the club's photo contest for January. His winning image was featured on the cover of the January issue of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC.

    January's theme was snow. The theme for February's contest is a railway photograph that expresses just how cold it is outside. It could be hoarfrost on a cold steel rail, ice crystals as exhaust plumes rise from diesel locomotives or wind driven sheets of snow caused by the velocity induced by train movements.

   To make things easier, any photograph that was shot in 2015, 2014 or earlier will be allowed. The winner will have their image featured on February's cover of The Lantern. They will also receive $15 or $30, depending on how many entries are submitted.  The deadline for entries will be no later than MIDNIGHT on Tuesday, January 27.

    Robert Weaver, the stalwart editor of The Lantern (the official publication of the WMRC) , would like to remind all members that the deadline for January's photo contest is fast approaching! The deadline is on Monday, December 29 at midnight. Up to $30 is available in prize money, and you'll get you photo on the cover of The Lantern if you win!

   December's theme was "The Spirit of Christmas". This month's theme is "snow" (but we'd like to see a train somewhere in there as well). It doesn't have to be a prototype photo - we accept images of model railroads too, as long as they've got some snow on or around them somewhere.  Be sure to submit your image in a vertical format!

   December's winner was the dashing and intrepid Paul Lemon, who shot this wonderful image of the CP Holiday Train. Paul is one of 10 members we have from across the pond, and we're grateful to each and every one of them for their many contributions and devotion to the club!

   

   Cliff Davidson, recording secretary for the WMRC, won the very first photo cover contest held by the club. He received a  prize of $15 and got his photo on the cover of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC. November's theme was �Railway Faces� and the possibilities were endless!

   "This is definitely a new face in the city." Said Cliff.  It was taken as the oil train was getting ready to head east out of the CPR yard on Oct.17th, 2014 at 5:07 PM. It was taken with a Canon Power ShotSX50 @ 1/200 sec., ISO-125, at F5.6. This Kansas City Southern ES44AC, #4683 was paired with CP AC4400, #9539. They had just backed unto an oil consist which would be heading south on the Emerson Sub. KCS is my favorite US Railroad and color scheme."

   One prize will be awarded each month in the amount of $30, if the Lantern editor receives 10 entries or more. If there are fewer than 10 entries then the awarded prize will be set at $15.

    Only one entry per member will be accepted and the document must be in a vertical format, 7.5" x 10" with a minimum resolution of 130 pixels per inch. Each entry must be taken during the current club year. Please include your name, the date taken and a brief description of the entry. If possible, please include the technical camera information regarding the exposure, etc.

    All entries to be submitted to the Lantern editor on the Saturday preceding The Lantern mailing (two weekends before the next meeting). The December issue of The Lantern should be in everyone's inbox very soon. The theme for the December issue was "In the spirit of a railway Christmas." Who will the winner be this month?

In the November issue of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC, member John Longhurst authored a moving article about his late brother-in-law Ken Epp's layout, the Cougar River Subdivision. Unfortunately, this publication is only available to members of the WMRC. But you can still view Ken's layout on-line on two links!

The first link is from the Sweden Freezer website. This site was the on-line home of the WMRC until Bill Taylor's passing last year. Bill created and maintained this website for the club, starting at the time when not many of us even had computers, not to mention internet access. The site for his business still exists, but links have been created to re-direct viewers to the new websites for the WMRC and the AVR. However, the link to view Ken's layout still exists! It was last updated in 2003, with several images taken by our own Ron Einarson. View it by clicking here. 

The other site to view Ken's layout is at John Longhurst's own website, the Manitoba and Minnesota subdivision. You can view his tribute to Ken and see several images of his layout by clicking here. 

You've read about our new location several times in this blog.
It's been posted on the WMRC Facebook page.
There was an article about our new location in the September issue of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC, which was sent to all club members.
Our President, Larry Leavens, sent out an email to all past and present members notifying them of our move to our new location at the Charleswood Legion at 6003 Roblin Boulevard.
Just to be sure, we're telling you again:

Don't go to Westworth United Church on Friday night!

Of course, you're welcome to attend their church services on Sundays, but we're not meeting there anymore!
We meet as usual at 7:30PM, this Friday, September 12, 2014. Our meeting will be held in the tank room in the basement. Please use the parking lot on the west side of the building. There is also a parking lot available directly across Roblin on the south side of the street.
The building at 6003 Roblin Boulevard has a big tank in front of it - you can't miss it!
The building is also wheelchair accessible from the west side of the building.
The tank room has a 10' ceiling and no pillars to obstruct your view. It promises to be much warmer in the winter months, and you don't have to take off your shoes in the winter! Imagine that - no more cold, smelly feet at our meetings!
We have full use of a modern kitchen. There's a cloakroom and ample space for our library.

Hope to see you all there this Friday!

   Every once in a while, WMRC blog editor Paul Ullrich contributes a cartoon to The Lantern, the official publication of the club, and to The Fusee, the official publication of the TLR. This cartoon has appeared in the February issue of The Lantern, and will also appear in the next issue of The Fusee (it's supposed to be the spring issue, but who are we kidding?).

    This is definitely a seasonal cartoon, but all you have to do is look out the window, or even (gasp) dare to go outside to know that winter is far from over (and that seems to go for the whole continent).

    There's a wind chill warning in effect in Winnipeg today. Water pipes are bursting all over the city. Everyone's yard is buried in three, four, and even five feet of snow! But it's a great time for model railroaders, so get down to the basement and get working on that model railroad project you've been putting off, because spring isn't happening yet!