You found us! You do like railroads and trains whether their real or models right?
Great! Us too!
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NMRA Museum Exhibit Open
Did you know that “The Magic of Scale Model Railroading” exhibit at the California State Railroad Museum is now open?
The museum itself opened to the public on April 1, and the exhibit opened a few days later. It’s an extremely impressive exhibit that shows the history of model railroading, contains a 40-foot wall of model trains that are exact replicas of trains that ran on 1:1 rails, has actual scenes from completed model railroads, and even incorporates a model railroad in the process of being built.
It’s a very informative exhibit for model railroaders and non-modelers alike.
To see a 20-minute video tour of the entire exhibit, or to read about how the exhibit came into being, or just to view a few photos, visit
nmra.org. You’ll find a link to the video, article, and photos right there on the homepage.
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Announcement of 2022 National Convention
St. Louis will host the 2022 convention and it is expected that all contracts for that convention will be signed shortly, if not by the time you read this.
See you all in St. Louis August 7 - 14, 2022.
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Announcement of 2021 National Convention Cancellation
Santa Clara, California—The host committee of the 2021 national convention of National Model Railroad Association, Inc., NMRA 2021 Rails By The Bay, announced today that it has canceled its convention that had been scheduled for the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel & Conference Center on July 4-11, 2021. A multi-day video virtual event—which will retain the name NMRA 2021 Rails By The Bay—is under development.
“Planning and running a convention of this magnitude requires signing transportation and outside tour contracts plus having commitments from layout owners for tours and operations at least six months in advance,” said Ray deBlieck, chairman of the host committee. “Based on current government orders in Santa Clara County and the public health situation, we were unable to obtain commitments from bus companies and tour sites. Many key layout owners also wanted to wait and see how the situation developed before committing to tours or ops. We also could not determine what the allowable room capacity for in-person events would be. We had a timetable with milestones in January for certain commitments and we could not secure those commitments with the required lead time. But bright spots are that our committee has tremendous talent and we had numerous excellent clinic commitments.”
Planning for a substitute video virtual event has begun. Tentatively scheduled to start July 6, the four- to five-day event will mix live and recorded video and will have virtual participation by clinicians and layout owners local to the Santa Clara area. Video clinics, layout tours, museum, and railfanning tours are expected, with Q&A sessions and layout owners’ panels to provide interactivity. Slack channels or breakout rooms are expected to allow live post-presentation discussions. The committee expects to cooperate with the successful NMRA-X virtual meeting team. More detailed information is expected to be released by April 2021.
The convention Registrar will contact all convention registrants in the near future and offer an opportunity to register for the July 2021 video virtual event at a $49 fee (covers all days), donate their registration fees to NMRA, or receive a full refund.
The planning committee draws members from 21st Century Limited, a California nonprofit corporation that successfully ran NMRA’s highly regarded 2011 and 2001 national conventions, as well as local modelers and operators. Pacific Coast Region of the National Model Railroad Association, Inc. is a co-sponsor. NMRA’s 2022 national convention is under continued development.
The National Train Show, which is separately planned and operated, also is canceled.
MEDIA INQUIRIES: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
REGISTRATION AND REFUNDS: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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TRAINFEST® 2021
Right now, plans for Trainfest® 2021 are still in place but under review. Please visit our website throughout the coming months for more information!
trainfest.com/
Show Us What You Have Been Up To!
Our Owl Car newsletter is now only in digital format. The advantage is that we are not limited on the pages we can put together. Our text and pictures will all be larger.
So let’s have some fun! Send pictures and a short description of what you have been doing while quarantined to your home. This will be like a neat little brag session for the Division and its members. And if you have just been running trains, send us some shots from your layout.
Send your email to our Owl Car Editor Steve Miazga (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and we will all look forward to our new Owl Car in the next issue.
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This is the home of the WISE Division of the NMRA. What that really means is if you're in or around the area of Southeastern Wisconsin (WISE) such as:
- Kenosha
- Milwaukee
- Ozaukee
- Racine
- Walworth
- Washington
- Waukesha
AND you like (or are even passionate about) modeling trains, railroads and their environs, then our chapter of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) is here to welcome you.
We are all like-minded individuals who are enthusiatsic about some, or all, aspects of railroads. Some of us have layouts ranging from a few square feet of shelf space to entirely dedicated basements. Some of us have layouts that are currently only in our imaginations. Many of us have both! You can never have too many trains.
We meet monthly through much of the year sharing our knowledge, experiences, triumphs and failures all while enjoying and supporting each other in our particular interests of model railroading.
Interested? Look around - come to a meet.
