Division Meeting Recap
March 12, 2016
This was our first meeting at our new location at the Austin Northwest Rec Center! As we settled into our new digs, Jerry Wilson gave a great clinic on resin casting. He brought lots of examples, and even made some casts during the clinic.
After Jerry's presentation, there were a few items for show-and-tell.
Steve Jackobs is working on a model of the Austin IGN station that used to be at 3rd and Congress. He is kitbashing a Walthers kit and employing a little selective compression and modification.
Edmar Wienskoski is known for his custom electronics and other devices. His home layout features his own DCC implementation, automated lighting that simulate sunset and sunrise, and more. At the meeting, Edmar brought his latest creation: a new DCC throttle based completely on a phone touchscreen. Not only does it let you control locomotives, but it also can display (and let engineers update) switch lists, control signals, switches, car spots, and more. Along with the RFID tags he has in each car and a plug-in RFID reader you can even audit the location of cars on the railroad. All of this uses the GPL open software license.
Terry Nathan brought the control module for the T-Trak layout belonging to AustiNTrak. It enables wireless access via JMRI thottles to run locomotives using DC or DCC on different tracks on the layout. It uses a Raspberry Pi module to drive the bridge between WiFi and the Digitrax system.
We also remembered our friend Cyril Durrenberger who recently passed. He was MMR #88, and was responsible for several of our members' involvement in Model Railroading and the NMRA. He made many, many contributions to the hobby and he will be missed.
We also talked about forming a Division Club in the Austin area. George Zapalac is heading up that effort and asked anyone interested in joining to contact him. I'm sure we'll get updates from him at upcoming meetings.
We ended with our usual Deal or Duds drawing, sponsored by the great folks at King's Hobby in Austin.
After the meeting we toured two layouts in the Northwest Austin area (see below).
Our next regular meeting is planned for May 14, 2016. Hope to see you there!