Great Lakes Chapter

Contact:

Kurt H. Miska
Home phone - 734 662 8579
Office Email: khmiska@umich.edu
Annual dues: $30   (includes Local Chapter annual dues of $10 plus National ETE annual dues of $20)
Send dues to: Kurt Miska, 3488 Wagner Woods Ct, Ann Arbor MI 48103

News:

• Columbus GATS

For those of you who were not able to participate in the Great American Train Show in Columbus, OH on February 11, 12 and 13, 2005 let me say that we had a mighty good time from the time we set up the modular layout to the heading home.

Great Lakes members who made the trip south included your editor, Bill and Joannie Bosse, Dan Driessche from the west side of Michigan, Paul Berry, Steve, aka Mike, Lobocki, Carsten Ramcke, Dan Roe, Jan and Susan Eisen and son Zachary, Adrian Wegener and son Matt all the way from Chesterfield Township, Dave Thomson from Cincinnati, and our newest member Larry Cuy from Brecksville, OH.

Dan Driessche and I were the first to arrive. We unpacked at once and were in the midst of assembling his five modules when the others started to drift in. Bill and Joannie Bosse, towing the official ETEGL trailer filled to the brim with modules, arrived soon thereafter and, again, we wasted no time in unloading.

We had until 7 PM to begin set-up and, believe me, we used every minute. Next morning everyone was there bright and early because there was much, much work to be done but, wouldn’t you know it, but Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head in the form of some serious electric gremlins. Much discussion, much crawling underneath the layout with multimeters in hand to locate the gremlins. Some success. By opening time, 11 AM, some of the gremlins were slain and we were able to operate analog trains but only Eloks running off catenary. Bill Bosse’s wife helped by installing several sections of stone walls on his still under construction staging modules. Saturday evening we all partook of hearty German fare at Schmidt’s Sausage House in the Germantown section of Columbus.

Came Sunday morning, the GATS folks were really nice and let us in at 9 AM after we told them that we needed more time to sort out our electrical problems. That took nearly all of the two hours before opening time at 11 AM but were able to run digital, rail analog and catenary analog.

Joannie Bosse served a very nice lunch consisting of goodies definitely not available from the convention center concessionaires.

Well, we ran everything from Matt Wegener’s “Schienenbus” to the almost obligatory ICE. There were long coal trains, a Crocodile hauling weathered ore cars, Umbauwagen behind a brand new E 44, Era II four-axle coaches behind a Prussian P8, the streamlined BR 05 running a “Sonderzug”, and much much more. As at so many previously attended shows, our visitors were most interested in our catenary and the fact that the Eloks actually drew their power off it. So, all in all, a very pleasant weekend.

• 7/99 Great Lakes Chapter Chartered It's official! The ETEGL is a chartered regional chapter of the ETE. In a brief ceremony during the Eurowest Train Show in San Francisco on July 24, Bill Comfort, president of ETE awarded the ETEGL with a plaque honoring our chapter with formal accreditation (see photo). What does this mean to the ETEGL? Besides official sponsorship by the ETE for any regional activities, it gives our club access to some of the most enthusiastic railfans in North America. For those of you who have yet to join the national organization, please do so. Their newsletter is excellent, and the modest investment of time and money to join insures that events such as Eurowest will continue for years to come!

• ETEGL Module SIG Announced In keeping with the national ETE format, the ETEGL is adding a SIG (Special Interest Group) to the organization. The SIG will be dedicated to the construction, maintenance and operation of a fleet of individually owned modules, which can be combined to form a larger layout. This way, for minimal cost members can enjoy construction of their own module, which can then be joined to other modules for a large layout and exciting operating sessions. Each ETEGL newsletter will include an article or two on the SIG’s activities. The purpose of the SIG is to keep the ETEGL focus on European train prototypes, while still allowing members with interest in European train models to further their hobby together within the ETEGL. All members, regardless of their interests, are invited to help out, or at least come out to operating sessions. A good time is guaranteed! Also, anyone is welcomed to build a module ­ NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY and the cost is minimal! Just contact Kurt or Carsten and they’ll put you on the right track ?…

• DUES As a reminder, ETEGL members are expected to also join the national organization. National membership dues, together with an application, can be sent to California directly. Details can be found at www.ete.org. Great Lakes Chapter dues are shown above, less than a dollar a  month. This provides members with at least four quarterly newsletters. Please make your check out to ETEGL and send it to the address above.

Newsletters:

• January 1999
  December 1998

Meetings:

NEXT ETEGL MEETING: TBD

For more info contact Carsten Ramcke at cramcke@email.msn.com or Kurt Miska at khmiska@umich.edu

Last modified on February 24, 2008