The April combined Midwest 2-Foot and Mini-Bunch meet in Greenford was a success by all measures. Increased general attendance as well as 65 plus Mini-Bunch members; 50 plus contest models ranging from HOn3 to F scale (large scale); an entire gym full of displays and dealer goodies; a room set-a-side for display railroads mostly On30; two days of clinics and speakers; and a evening buffet to wrap up. The gang said they want to come back next year.

I was impressed with the sheer number of large scale models and displays at the April Greenford meet. First place in motive power went to an F scale 1:20.3 climax from the Genessee Valley Club. Half of the model entries were large scale. The Genessee Valley G Gaugers had a large display of motive power and equipment. Most notable were the transformation of Bachmann log and ore cars from plastic to scale models compliments of re-painting, added details, and metal wheel sets. This would be a great clinic applicable to all scales.

The gym had a large scale table top railroad set-up for running. The live steam Accucraft C16 consolidation was impressive – no electronic steam sound needed. The new Accucraft D&RGW high side gondola was displayed – very impressive detail at a reasonable cost.

The Mini-Bunch gained a number of new members from this meet. Welcome aboard. The volunteer offer of Al Askerberg to generate a member railroad list is ours for the doing. This will expand our member list and be of assistance to all Mini-Bunch members when distributed. See description by Ted further back in the newsletter. I urge all members to provide the necessary information to Al.

Over 65 members made it to Greenford. Gary planned a full 36 hours of fun. Clinics were interesting as usual.

On Friday evening Bob Richardson talked about the RGS. Fun as usual and he showed some new slides and told tales of his experiences with the railroad.

Like the time he took the Goose from Rico to Lizard Head in the fall. They dropped him off and he hiked to a point above the tail of the wye for some photos. He knew that a train with spare room in the caboose would be along in a couple of hours, but he was the only person at the pass. Then it started to snow. In a half hour, there was 6" of the stuff. Then he became con-cerned - would the freight be able to get to Lizard Head? Yes, the train did make it to carry him out of the storm.

There was an excellent clinic lineup. Pete Doughety of Virginia gave a soldering clinic using some special low temp solders he has been able to get from England.

The On30 group was there in full force. They now call themselves the ‘willows’ ‘cause they will bend which-ever way the wind blows. (The group is definitely anti-prototype!!!) For a couple of hours on Saturday after-noon they were holding a closed door meeting. I sense an insurrection is brewing. The one salvation the rest of the narrow gaugers have is that the group will never be able to agree on anything - except to disagree!

There were several ‘tiny’ modules. Russ Haigh had the smallest Sn2 operating railroad. The base was the 3/4" plywood cutout from an On2 turntable!! The track circle was definitely under 12" in DIAMETER!

Here are photos from meeting:

Award winning On3 enginehouse

Bob Richardson gets the slides ready

HOn3 module

Sales activity

We like to eat!

Huge, but runs on G gauge track

Small stuff

More big stuff

1/2" scale sawmill

We took a break from Gary’s activities and held a meeting to discuss future plans. As stated above it was an overwhelming choice to return to Greenford next spring. Although this does not provide us the oppor-tunity to see home layouts that others have built, we still have the clinics, contests and fellowship that is so im-portant for the group. And there are several modular layouts that are inspiring. So, plan on attending the meet next April.

Al Askerberg volunteered to put together a layout guide for Mini-Bunch members. Al will assemble the information and forward to the editors for publishing with the newsletter. Now Al cannot visit each of you to take photos and write the history of your layout, so you will need to take your favorite photo plus a paragraph description and send it to Al. If you can email the photo and information, Al’s job will be that much easier. 

The Fall 2002 Mini-Bunch Meet will be held October 19 and 20, 2002 on Ohio's Marblehead Peninsula (near Sandusky)

The headquarters motel will be near Sandusky. There will be a special group room rate available for reser-vations made before September 15, 2002. (Believe it or not, the weekend of the meeting is a high occupancy time in Sandusky.) So, please make your reservations early. Pete said we will have the name and phone information for the next newsletter.

A major feature will be a drive yourself tour guide of:

• The former Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad on the peninsula,
• The former Toledo, Port Clinton, and Lakeside interurban line, and
• Several little known quarry lines have been located and mapped by Kirk Hise.

There will be all the usual model and photo contests, and we anticipate having three speakers who will talk about the history of these lines.

Pete Stroth needs both clinic presenters and layouts to visit in the area. If you can help, or know someone who can, please call him at (330) 483-3962. (Pete reports that his email has not be working well, so please phone.)

The group voted to return to Gary’s meet next spring. Gary plans to enlarge the contest categories, and he would like a Mini-Bunch volunteer to record the entries for the contests. It will Probably be the 4th and 5th of April, but Gary needs to confirm the dates.

Tentatively, we are planning on a West Virginia meeting in the fall of 2003. Cass will be the destination. Fritz Prosch is doing some initial planning. We will keep you posted. Maybe we can rent a train. There are cabins available right on the site, and he is looking into rental costs for those.

Dearborn, Michigan will be the site of the 25th National Narrow Gauge Convention. Dan Kempf, spokesman for the group sponsoring the meeting said the convention will be August 31st to September 3rd, 2005, (Labor Day weekend).

Dan has asked us for recommendations for clinics. If there is something you would like to see or a particular speaker you would like to hear, send a note to us and we will forward to Dan. Or, his email address is: dkempf@ameritech.net

Dan would like to know about any modular layouts that could be at the show.

Some members have never received a name badge since they have not been available for over 10 years. So send $10 to Ted, and we will get a new badge for you for the next meeting. (Tell us how to spell the name too - nickname - or whatever.)

The last two newsletters are our website. Thanks to David Keith, our webmaster, you now have the chance to see the photos in color. We will send each newsletter to David for posting. Generally, there will be additional photos that we do not have room for in the newsletter.

If you send your email address to Ted, it will be added to his address book, and you will be notified when the newsletter is available on the Internet.

This new Society plans to publish six newsletters and at least two magazines per year. Although it will include standard gauge, several of the founders are historians interested in the narrow gauge. If you are interested, go to the website - http://rgmhs.drgw.org, or write to the Society at PO Box 25114, Colorado Springs, CO 80936-5114.

John and Ted thank Jim Eakin for the help in getting these newsletters printed. Jim has been in the railroad printing business for a number of years. As a result, we were able to get the copying done for a really reasonable price.

We plan to send out 4 newsletters per year. We are looking for articles on modelbuilding and prototype that will be of interest for the members. John and I have a special interest in Western narrow gauge. Would anyone like to try their hand at preparing a column on logging or Eastern narrow gauge?

If your copy of the newsletter has "last issue" written on the label, then we would appreciate your sending us $8.00 for the next 2 years or your attending the next meeting. (Frankly, we would prefer that you attend the meetings.)

• Information on the Fall meeting
• Photo article on Bill Florent’s layouts in HO and Hon3.
• All his structures are board-by-board construction.

Sn3 Symposium
Feb 14-16, 2003 - St Louis, MO
Feb 2004 - Pasadena, CA