20th Anniversary Celebration
Boone, IA
October 24-26, 2003
- Large N Scale layout featuring 24 hour running and operating sessions for those interested.
- Extra fare Boone & Scenic Valley train ride
- Plenty of railfanning with the UP main line outside the front door
- Saturday evening anniversary celebration
- Vendor area Saturday morning (9am-1pm, free admission!)
Photos from the Event
Twenty Years of Fun Together
- Drew Cannon
DesMoiNTRAK, the NTRAK club in Central Iowa, celebrated it's 20th Anniversary the last weekend in October. And what a celebration it was! Members, former members, and friends from all around the country joined us for a weekend of running trains, railfanning, special activities on the Boone & Scenic Valley tourist railroad, a Saturday morning public swap meet, and anniversary chili dinner, birthday party, and lots of reminiscing.
We were especially honored to have Jim and Lee FitzGerald join us for the weekend. Jim asked if we would share a brief history of our club and thoughts on what has kept us together for twenty years.
DesMoiNTRAK traces it's roots back to the serendipidous meeting of two original members. Our master wood worker Tom Newell and electronics expert Harlan Warden noticed each other's interest in N scale at a local model railroad meet in the early 1980's and began talking. Harlan had already built six module frames and some trackwork to another standard (Interail) in the late 1970's and discovered that Tom was working on an NTRAK module. At a subsequent local meet they displayed Tom's straight module and one of Harlan's corner modules. As local interest in the NTRAK standard grew, Harlan modified his modules.
Over the next year or two through twice a year local meets and the knowledgeable staff at Hobby Haven, our outstanding hobby shop, three or four others became interested in NTRAK and started working on modules.
We define the beginning of our club as a layout we set up at a swap meet in northeast Iowa in the winter of 1983. Modest by today's standards -- a circle of four straight modules and four corners, literally "plywood plains" -- it was the first modular layout in Iowa (we think) and was greeted with interest.
As our interest and the number of modules increased we wanted to join the big layout that summer at the Kansas City national meet. Correspondence with Jim FitzGerald assured us that we were welcome even without modules -- ours weren't finished well enough to show at a NATIONAL layout with THE BIG BOYS, we feared. Jim said there would be work enough at the layout for all willing hands! What an experience -- totally energizing. We were solidly hooked. Two important lessons we learned from our first big layout: the wonderful friends you make around a layout, and everyone cuts joiner tracks (in other words, no module is perfect and ours were plenty good enough to include in a big NTRAK layout).
How have we managed to stay together for 20 years? As much by accident as by intention! We do, however, do a few things deliberately. Here is how we describe our club in our promotional literature:
"We are a group of members and friends from around Central Iowa who gather together to enjoy model railroading. We are a very informal group with some common goals.
- Above all, we aim for fun: running trains, talking trains, and enjoying our common interest.
- We learn, share, and improve our individual abilities as modelers and railfans.
- We promote the hobby of model railroading in general; we especially promote NTRAK and N Scale."
In plain words, we focus on the fun. Most of what we do, we do because we enjoy doing it.
We try to find ways to include people IN, not exclude them or plan them out. We learned this from Jim and many others. NTRAK seems to work best when it is inclusive.
We focus on what we have in common, knowing that in a few areas of our lives we have things which would divide us if we let them. Our common interests have kept us busy, growing and enjoying each other for many years.
We try to stay flexible and tolerant.
We grow together as modelers and as people by sharing our skills, learning new things together, and intentionally growing through service to our group, to NTRAK, to the community of model railroaders, and to the larger community.
We deliberately get new members involved and active quickly so we can benefit from their initial energy and enthusiasm. After a year or two when they have participated in a few layouts we get them involved as a layout coordinator. This gives them a vehicle to get to know other members, their modules and interests -- and us a chance to know them better too. Before long we invite them to serve as an officer, usually as Vice President which has two important functions: layout organizer (and sometimes coordinator) and President Elect (next year's President). Since most all of us have already served as club President, we make sure the new officer has plenty of support as they grow into their new positions.
We have had our disagreements and personality frictions over the years. For the most part we hang together and work them out -- each person seems to initiate this effort when it is needed.
Oh the stories we can tell! We've done a little of everything! Set up an outdoor layout in a tent, on bare ground, complete with an evening thunderstorm (ask us about the belly dancers who sought shelter under our tent!) Hauled modules to an out of town show in Harlan's father's grain truck. Set up a layout for a church pledge drive kick off (didn't matter what church, their theme was train-related, they asked, we helped out). Served on planning and implementation committees at the local, regional, and national levels. Welcomed high school aged modelers into our group (one grew up to become our webmaster). Go out of our way to put a throttle in the hand of any interested child we see at our layouts.
Our congratulations to other long-time clubs. Our best wishes to all of our friends everywhere as we enter our third decade of running trains and sharing good times together. We look forward to seeing you at a layout somewhere in the near future and invite you to join us at one of our layouts when your plans allow.
Layout Information
To understand the operating scheme, begin your thinking at the big central yard and think your way out in both directions from there using these specific operating procedures:
Normal Red Line (outer main) run is:
- Right-handed
- Begins in "blue" (branch line) yard
- Ends in "red" (outer main) yard
- Stay on NTRAK oval for 1 or more laps before returning to yard
- Option of Loop A or not
To reach industries at Town A:
- Run red line out from yard
- Opposite current of traffic on Red from yard to crossovers and onto Yellow (inner main) line
- One or more laps on yellow loop then crossovers at X1B
Yard Operations:
- Blue yard (branch line) is normal "departure" yard for Red (outer main) and Blue (branch line) loops (blue via crossovers)
- Yellow yard (inner main) is departure and arrival yard for traffic to/from towns A, B, and C
- Red yard (outer main) is normal "arrival" yard for red (outer main) and blue (branch line) loops
- Yellow yard (inner main) also arrival and departure yard for yellow loop (via short trip on red from yard to crossovers)
- Switch/drill all three yards from "East" (oNeTrak) end
- Access from one yard to the other yards via "yard throat" module on oNeTrak line
Layout Plan
