Our second meeting of the new millennium will be held on Thursday, February 17, 2000. We will be reviewing our upcoming show at GATS.

We will still be at the JOHN C. WOOD Municipal Center, which is located at 3730 Old Lee Highway just behind the Fairfax City Police Station. We’ll be in Room #1 and the meeting will start at 07:00 p.m..

The January Greenberg show at the Capital Expo Center in Chantilly was marked by very cold weather and record crowds. The Trackers were able to setup most of their layout on Friday evening thanks to the extended hours now offered by Greenberg. This made for a relaxed environment without time pressures. The final modules were setup Saturday morning and we were up and running without major hassles. We did encounter a short which was tracked to a receptacle on one of the Pot yard modules. Hopefully this will be fixed in the near future.

The crowds were just fantastic. In fact they were record breaking. We had wall to wall people around our layout most of the weekend. The layout, with the full Pot yard modules, was one of our best to date. The operation was trouble free all weekend.

As a special treat we were fortunate to have Bill Oehrli and his daughter Karen Oehrli join us for a few hours on Saturday. We were glad he was able to make the show. The only glitch occurred when Karen locked her keys in her van. We want to thank Brian Brendel from the Northern Virginia Ntrack club for his efforts in getting her car unlocked. Except for the noise they generate, they are a pretty good group of guys. When their eyesight starts failing, they are more than welcome to join us with our larger trains.

At the show, Greenberg provided us with tables and we were able to sell one of the club's ZW transformers. The members who brought items for sale had a good weekend. We hope to repeat the process at the Upper Marlboro show.

-------------------------- 2000 ------------------------

Feb. 12-13, Greenberg Show at The Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Feb. 26-27, GATS Show, Montgomery County Agriculture Center, Gaithersburg (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Apr. 14-15, York TCA Meet

Apr. 29-30, B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore (NCT is scheduled to appear)

May 13 Beltsville Day in Beltsville, MD (NCT is scheduled to appear)

June 03 Manassas Railroad Festival in Manassas, VA (NCT is scheduled to appear)

June 09-11 Fairfax County Fair in Fairfax, VA (NCT is scheduled to appear)

July 15-16 Greenberg Show at Capital Expo Center in Chantilly, VA (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Sept. 24 Gaithersburg Olde Towne Day in Gaithersburg, MD (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Oct. 07 Fall for Fairfax Festival in Fairfax, VA (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Oct. 07-08 Brunswick Railroad Days in Brunswick, MD (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Oct. 20-21, York TCA Meet

Nov. 11-12 Rockville Lions Club Train Show in Rockville, MD (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Nov. 25-28, Festival of Trees in Easton, MD

Dec. 02-03 Fairfax Station Railroad Museum Train Show in Fairfax Station, VA (NCT is scheduled to appear)

Dec. 06-31, National Christmas Tree exhibit on the ellipse in Washington, D.C.

February finds us at another Greenberg show in Upper Marlboro on Feb. 12-13. We will be back in the "Tack Room" again. Setup time is 08:00 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 12. Show times are 11:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. on Saturday and 11:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. on Sunday. Click here to see a layout for this event.

Later in the month, we will be at a GATS show in the Montgomery County Agriculture Center in Gaithersburg on Feb. 26-27. We are in the upper floor of the 4H building. Click here to view the layout.
 
Directions to GATS show: From I-270 North, take exit 10-11 (Montgomery Village/Fairgrounds), go to Route 355 South, make a right onto Perry Parkway, Fairgrounds entrance will be on the left 1/2 mile. We are in the second floor of the 4H building.   Setup is at 07:30 a.m. on Sat. Feb. 26.

At the clubs January business meeting, the club voted to appear at the B&O Museum on Dec. 26-29. This is during the work week, setup will be on Dec. 23.

In addition, there are two new Greenberg shows on the schedule. On Sept. 16-17 there will be a Greenberg Train Show at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro and on Dec. 30-31 there will be a Greenberg Train Show at the Capital Expo Center in Chantilly. The club voted on doing both shows. All the above shows have been added to the schedule. We will start a show sign-up sheet at the February business meeting.

Another new event is an appearance at Six Flags America. This used to be called Adventure World before Six Flags took it over. This date is tentative and more information will be forthcoming about this appearance. We owe this appearance to Tracker Brian Kurtz, a.k.a. Batman (The character he plays at the park). I bet you didn't know that one of our members was really a super hero in disguise.

The Internet and our website was the subject of a lively discussion at the January meeting. Members expressed deep concerns about what information is posted to the site. A committee was established to develop a set of policies and procedures regarding the website.

Finally the club voted to divest itself of our old transformers and to purchase additional Z-4000 transformers with the proceeds. Two Trackers purchased the ZW's while the third one was sold at the Greenberg show.

The Trackers owe a special thanks to Dennis Driscoll and The Train Depot in Manassas for offering to print our newsletter and brochures. The January Beltline was printed by them. This will mean a significant savings to the club.

The Train Depot is the largest and best stocked model train store in Northern Virginia. Make them your destination of choice for your model train needs.

We want to welcome Lynn Gaines of Burke, VA who joined our club at the Greenberg show in January. Welcome aboard!

Open Invitation
The Train Doctor from Fairfax Station and Rockville Lions Show invites all Trackers to Open House