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Badgerland S Gaugers News

"…. A social club for the promotion of model railroading—
especially S gauge including American Flyer, hi-rail, scale
and other facets...

Badgerland S Gaugers Charter

G Bruck, A. Doty, R. Eveleth, R. Meissner, B. Mosher, K. Pilon, R. Puls, R. Schlicht,
D. Smukowski, S. Smukowski, J. Starosta, F. Vergenz, R. Wade, R. Westerhouse, D. Young,
J. Young. Guest: R. Hoelke (17)

Dave Smukowski opened the general business meeting. Dave also gave a brief report on the upcoming Cedarburg show. It was pointed out by Dave that some members show up at various events, flash their BSG badge and due to the fact that we have a layout at the show get in free. If you are not there to help out and spend some time at the layout, leave your badge at home and pay the entrance fee. These other organizations need the revenue too. Freeloading should not be part of the BSG reputation. That type of behavior is pathetic and unacceptable. Dave also gave a brief report on the upcoming Green Bay show. Let him know as soon as possible if you will be helping out and the show. This show is right across the street from Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers.

Jeff Young gave the treasurer’s report. He also gave a detailed report on our swap meet income.

A rather lengthy discussion followed on the swap meets. With a lot of train shows taking place in the immediate area, we are in constant competition to put on an economically successful meet. Our last meet was up against the Lena IL train show. This meant a loss of dealers for this month. That show also impacted the Lionel swap meet. The BSG swap meets are our major source of income. It is important that we maintain a strong customer base and dealer base. Each effects the other. If there are a lot of empty tables the paying public will not return. If there are not a lot of people coming through the door the dealers will not return. As a sidelight, at the February meet we had some people walk by the registration table, peek into the room, and than come back pay their $3.00 and proceed into the hall. If the hall had looked half full, they probably would not have spent the three bucks and gone home. In March there will be another big show in Rockford. It will again impact our meet.

At present we are still making a profit but it is not at the levels that we have had in the past. This is not necessarily due to a lack of effort but just a matter of fact. DuPage is down in attendance and so is everyone else. (I will not go into a tirade about the move back to the "shrinking" metropolis of Milwaukee.) This only means that to maintain an acceptable level of success, we may have to do a little more creative thinking and even a little more effort by our membership. If the swap meets fail it will greatly handicap the activities of our club.

As an insurance policy, BSG is extending an open invitation to the Milwaukee Road Historical Association. They are a non-profit organization and have consistently donated door prizes to our Fall S Fests. Jim Starosta will bring their wares to the shows. If we have a full house they will not set up. We have never sold out all 55 tables. If we did there is a contingency plan that could add at least six more tables. Our best scenario would be not having enough room for MRHA.

Some of the magazines are dropping the practice of placing of free ads in their publications. Even Kalmbach is more selective and will only place some of these ads "if space is available" in a particular issue. This means that there are no more guarantees for free advertising. If the rate does not change for next month, it means that we will pay The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel a total of $366.48 for the season. They gave us one free month because they screwed up one of our ads. Otherwise it would have been $427.56 for this year, for seven meets. We will be reevaluating the effectiveness of those ads and the composition of the ads.

Club member, Dennis Young who probably attends more meets than anyone, offered a few suggestions for our club to pursue.

Dave Smukowski has been taking the small BSG layout to our swap meets over the last few years. He noted that when we were in Waukesha there were always children around the layout, watching it run, while their parents looked for bargains. Where have all the children gone in Milwaukee?

The lengthy discussion finally came to a close with few conclusions other than more club members need to be involved in "our" swap meets promotion.

Many other issues regarding club finances were discussed. Ron Schlicht is compiling financial spreadsheets on all club activities. For any state or legal purposes our fiscal year starts January 1^st. From the practical standpoint, since our major sources of income (dues, swap meets, misc. sales) revolve around the month of January, we will consider our financial year ending August 31^st and starting September 1^st. An annual BSG financial report will given in September and sent out to "members only" in a subsequent newsletter.

Art Doty gave a report on many of the model railroad activities that are taking place around the Mid-west and the country. With all of the organizations that Art belongs to, I have to assume that he has his membership cards on a Rolodex. This eliminates the stress of carrying around a sixteen-pound wallet or having to use a bowling ball bag for the cards. I can just picture Art being stopped for a taillight being out on his car and the officer finally giving up and letting him go after he says " I know my license is somewhere in here. "

Ron Westerhouse gave a report on the Elderhostel, Great Railroad stories and special trains that rode the rails show that will be taking place at the Green Lake Conference Center August 13^th through August 18^th. He brought along some literature on the event, which has been taking place over the past nine years. There will be very special room rates (bargain prices) set up for all those participating in this event. It focuses on the 55 and older populous. Over the same period of time there will be other activities and conventions taking place in the same area and at the same convention center. This might provide additional exposure for our club. It also means a commitment from BSG of nearly a weeklong event. There is a potential of 2500 or more in total attendance. There will be other train clubs participating in this event. We have been asked to be one of them.

Rick Wade gave a brief report on the progress with our website. BSG current events are being posted on a regular basis.

Rich Eveleth has been taking pictures at nearly every event that BSG attends. He passed around some of the shots taken at the Mad-City show. He will be posting them shortly on the Badgerland Yahoo site. Whenever I view the pictures, it is sometimes a bit scary, some of them, not through Rich’s fault turn out to be less than flattering. My God we are all starting to look so old.

Ron Schlicht has been selling various club items at our swap meets for years. The Classic Toy Train back issues have been selling well. If you have a stack of back issue magazines that you wish to get rid of that are related to S gauge get them to Ron Schlicht. Every little bit helps finance The Badgerland S Gaugers.

Some of you may have only an item or two, or three, or so to sell and don’t want to rent a whole table. If you have the items priced, bring them to our swap meets. That is one of the other reasons that we have the BSG club table. We ask for no commissions.

Ron also reported on the status of the leftover 2004 Fall S Fest cars inventory. The stock is going down. There are also only four of the big patches left at $20.00 each.

At the shows where the large modular layout is displayed, we rarely use the scale rolling stock. It seems like many of our members prefer to run some of their own equipment on the layout. For example Don Goeke runs his American Flyer Northern "Gorgeously" repainted in a Union Pacific scheme. (If he ever forgets that one at a show it will be gone forever.) Dick Kloes runs his engines. Some individuals bring their S-Helper ore cars. I can go on and on. Therefore Dick Kloes and Ron Schlicht will be going over the club’s inventory of scale equipment. We will then determine what items will be sold. These items will be on a first come first serve basis to club members and then be offered to the general public at subsequent swap meets. We have a lot of equipment that is never used and do not have the bodies to drag it around.

The February general meeting of the Badgerland S Gaugers was held at the Village of Jim Starosta. I say the village, because only Gil Bruck has more people on his layout than Jim. The meeting was a weeknight affair and I couldn’t think of a better night than what is traditionally called "Fat Tuesday". For some it is the day to eat, drink and be merry before the season of Lent. Many of our members took full advantage of the opportunity. Jim restrained himself and did not have any floats, dress goofy or throw beads at anyone. As usual there was plenty to eat and drink. The only disappointment was that the food was not served on Milwaukee Road China. (The butter dish was Milwaukee Road China.) His recreation room is nearing completion. The bad news is that the pool table has not been relocated yet. The good news is that the Badgerland S Gaugers will not be moving it. This is a major task with the table being a pro-type model. So let’s just say that the table was not "on the slate" for this meeting.

Jim has started to hang up some of his very nice Milwaukee Road memorabilia. Hopefully by the annual Christmas meeting, which Jim has volunteered to host, we will see a lot more of it. Jim had some trains running but the drywall dust has given his layout a rather eerie look. I went through the same thing a few years ago. Cleaning a layout is no easy task. Just dusting the heads of over 3,600 little people is a job.

Unfortunately, and I don’t mean this in a joking way, at nearly every meeting we have had a report on some of the health problems of many of our members. We wish them all well. This is just another reason that we need more club participation at BSG events. Gil Bruck who had knee replacement surgery around a month before attended the meeting and thanked the members for their well wishes.

"…. A social club for the promotion of model railroading—especially S gauge including American Flyer, hi-rail, scale and other facets….

We will remain a social club forever and that is a good thing. This term is also required to maintain our tax-free status.

Some model train buffs get together in a round robin style, run trains, have a couple beverages, have fun and in general shoot the bull. They are not state–wide organizations, they don’t have formal meetings, do not have officers, do not have by-laws or a constitution, do not publish any newsletters, do not communicate with multiple organization around the USA, do not have any real sources of income, do not take their multiple layouts to multiple train shows, do not host national and regional conventions and could care less about the promotion of a particular train scale. That is a "social" club. Who are we? In addition to being a social club we are actually a small business. BSG has far exceeded the small group of S gauge enthusiasts that originally formulated it. Illusions of grandeur have nearly surpassed the physical capabilities of the limited amount of "actual" BSG participants.

In the last five years there have been a very high number of request for the Badgerland layouts to attend various model railroading events. This is something that we should consider a complement. We have accepted as many as we feel we can handle. Yet there are many more that we would truly like to make but for logistical reasons and primarily because of the lack of available personnel we cannot.

Once again we got to spend a weekend in the city of the perpetually offended, Madison, WI. The city that passes no smoking laws. The city that passes almost no everything laws. Of course , the city that would object to smoking American Flyer engines. True. Despite all of that, this is one of the finest model railroad shows in the country. There were a lot of layouts, quite a few vendors, some real bargains, and naturally, some not so great bargains. I picked up a couple items that I have been looking for, for quite some time, at a reasonable price.

Again we had the three-piece combo, the modular layout, the youth layout (tinplate, Flyer, Plasticville) and the BSG information booth.

Gary Children was able to obtain a display that Kalmbach Publishing was no longer using and they donated it to our club. Gary did a fine job setting it up. What I call the BSG Information Booth has been downplayed by some members as not that big a deal. Once again they are wrong. Most of the clubs at the shows that we attend have members that stand around like manikins and have little or no interaction with the public. Not so with BSG, we have videos playing, information sheets, free handouts, free magazines and literature on S gauge, not to mention the display of the various model railroad scales. We have received many compliments on the fact that we actually are willing to spend time with the individuals explaining model railroading in general. If you don’t like the booth maybe you just haven’t spent any time there. Try it you’ll like it. Thanks again to Gary and all of those who once again helped to make it a success this year.

The youth layout as always received a lot of attention. We gave out the BSG replica patch stickers to the kids. Some adults even asked for them. Rick Wade, Rich Eveleth helped out running the trains and operating accessories. Doug Stoll spent two days manning the outside of the layout passing out stickers and answering any and all questions that the attendees threw at him.

After a setup shorts search Friday, the BSG modular layout ran pretty well over the weekend. Let me clarify the last sentence, it was electrical shorts, not any particular members shorts. The modular layout also received a lot of attention. This is the only show in the state that features four S gauge layouts. Our club has two, a Madison group has one and then there is the animated Buck Guthrie layout. This adds a level of competition as far as I’m concerned. It also means that we have to strive harder to leave an impression, and it goes without saying, that it better be a good impression.

The "BSG" modular layout, give me a break. This layout is the Dick Kloes, Ray Puls, Don Goeke, Dave Smukowski and Steve Lunde layout. BSG, as a club, has little to do with it. A few years ago I asked the question "Where have all the modules gone." Can you believe at one time we had a horseshoe shaped layout where the inside short legs were 16 feet long. I have also said " After all is said and done more is said than done." Nothing has changed over the past few years. The layout has very few options or contingencies in the event of one of the "Magnificent Five" are unable to make a show. Just how many shows does the layout appear at a year, TWO.

This brings me to another point. Here is what is required for the modular layout as it was presented in Madison & Trainfest.

One set of BSG corners (90 degrees) is 44 inches across, about 18 inches wide and when sandwiched together about a foot deep. In actuality when placed on an angle they are not 44 inches in length. Someone adopt these "please". We only have "four" corners. We only need "two or three" club members (not the ones we have already). The club will pay for the scenery materials. Make them attractive. They once were when I took care of them. Two shows, small size, light weight, no expense to you and only have to be maintained, set up and picked up.

This year, due to a death in the family, Steve Lunde was unable to attend the show. BSG extends their condolences.

We were now down to the "Fabulous Four". The problem was who was going to have the room for this extra equipment. Thank God we made it.

I am compiling a list of the various BSG items that someone else (other than the usual suspects) can bring to the shows. This will take the load off of some of our members. It will also make the shows less physically demanding on our "aging" modular layout committee. It will also make for a much less stressful weekend. In addition if one member cannot make it to a show at least someone else may now finally have some room in case of an emergency.

After breakdown in Madison, believe it or not, "one", I repeat "one" box was forgotten by one of our members. Five out of the six people that were left after packing up did not have room for the "one" single container. Unreal. If we are unable to find a sufficient number of volunteers, the BSG modular layout will no longer be appearing at Model railroad shows.

Not wanting to sound all negative, I don’t want to forget all of the help that we received from Cal Krasonya with the BSG booth and modular layout setup and breakdown.

We also had a "few" other members that helped out around the modular layout. Every year I get asked, "what can we do to help out"? Just ask Doug Stoll, who asked me the same question last year. (He is one of our newest members.) He was on the outside youth layout asking people if they had any questions or needed some information. He didn’t wait for them to ask , he approached them. By the way, he spent somewhere between 14 to 16 hours doing that. (I don’t expect that out of others.) We are a social club, but at shows we are not there to talk to one another. We can do that anytime. We are there for the public who paid to be educated on model railroading and entertained.

Dave Sengenberger who passed away a few years ago used to handle the stanchions. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, stanchions are the bases and posts with a length of rope to protect the layouts from those little intruding and inquisitive hands. (They are not the two posts that are required to keep a cow in place during milking.) They are used at Trainfest, Mad-City and some of them, but not all, are used at the MSOE show. For setup and breakdown at a show, the process takes less than an hour and a half "total". Best of all a person only has to be there after the layout has been setup and shortly before breakdown. All of the stanchions amount to three boxes.

Another item, a few years back we had a member, Don Hink, who used to sit at the layout controllers for the entire duration of the shows. We need responsible individuals who will perform that task. No not sit there for the entire show, but some individuals to act as the "engineers" so to speak, if only in one or two hour shifts. That way we can use the headsets again and it won’t look like a disorganized fire drill when a train uncouples or derails. We can avoid all of the yelling, screaming and flailing of the arms as a means of communication. It usually ends up looking very unprofessional. Plus when the show is at peak attendance you can’t hear anything anyway. The only other method left is an Olympic style sprint to the power supplies. It sure is fun watching old men trying to run around.

Again I ask "Where have all the modules gone." We need new blood, the rest of us are in need of a transfusion. And I am not kidding when I say that "the life of the modular layout is on life support and its days may be numbered".

Some of you may be asking so what about you Ron? With the (10) 4-foot modules, the 14 or more accompanying boxes of structures etc., BSG equipment and miscellaneous BSG items, I barely have room for my toothbrush and deodorant.

Due to the amount of work setting up and maintaining the youth layout, I will no longer be serving as modular layout chairman. I will continue to handle the paperwork for the shows applications, parking permits etc., but will not in any way be assisting with the large BSG modular layout. I will allow it to take care of itself. I will have to be informed of the layout size and who will be attending the shows. By the way this has to be done months in advance, particularly the layout plan, and then I will send it to the show administrators.

Now if I have not given any of you enough incentive to act: Say Good-By to The BSG Modular Layout.

The last five years or so we have stayed at the AmericInn for the Mad-City show. This past year the manager gave us a special rate due to our non-profit status. In addition he gave us an additional block of rooms. If you have any plans to attend this show next year, contact Dave Smukowski for a room reservation. This is a very nice place and they include a pretty good breakfast in the morning. They are located around two to three miles from the Alliant Center.

After some erroneous reports that this show was perhaps being cancelled, BSG once again made an appearance at this event. There are two really big reasons that I like to attend this show. One is the location and the other is that admission is free. Since it is on the northeast side of town and is free, some of the low income and underprivileged families are able to attend and see model railroading in action. The "student" model railroad club at the Milwaukee School Of Engineering runs this show. As usual they had what is termed the "Steamer Special, two hot dogs, a bag of treats (chips, etc.) and a soda for $3.50. This is always a popular item. The price was raised this year because the bureaucrats from the City of Milwaukee got involved

BSG had the youth layout and some of our club material handy at a display table. This show does not draw thousands over a weekend like the bigger ones but is still a fun event and we see new people attending every year. It is just another opportunity to educate the public on S gauge. Since this is not a really big show we do not need as many people to help out. Our members took note of this and once again showed up in under whelming numbers.

For "some" BSG members this has been a difficult stretch. There was the Serb Hall Show Feb. 11^th, Mad-City Show Feb. 17^th, 18^th, 19^th, BSG Swap Meet Feb. 26^th, MSOE Show Mar. 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th and the Cedarburg Show March 12^th. All of these events had various BSG layouts at them. Yes some members were at present at "all" of them. The good news is that March 26th is our last swap meet and we have until April 28th, 29^th & 30th until The Titletown Train Show in Green Bay WI.

With everything that we have handed out over the past few weeks I will be surprised if we don’t get any new members. We have been keeping ahead of the pace considering the usual attrition rate in memberships. The club has almost doubled in the last fifteen years and nearly tripled since 1986. It’s got to be the newsletters.

In the near future I will be unveiling the new BSG handbook. How many of you remember when we used to get one of those when we first became a member. I’m looking for an inexpensive source for three ring binders. I am in the process of creating a club history. I may require some help on this project. It involves going through all of our past newsletters from #1 to the present. Don’t get too excited I’ve done most of this already. I’m also looking for someone who has all of the published rosters. It’s has been only in the last fifteen years or so that we started to send them out with the newsletters. For some odd reason you had to request one in the past.

Did you know that in thirty-one years we have had only six presidents and three of them only served a total of five years. That situation is where the term "railroaded" came from.

*Must be accompanied or sponsored by a Full Participating Member. Junior members do not have voting rights.

*Family rate regardless of number of immediate family members. Immediate family member definition is: spouse and children under the age of 18.

All family members will receive a club membership card, which entitles them to full member privileges.

You’re going to love this. Not everyone is as morbid as I am and has a cemetery on his or her layout. Not everyone makes his gravestones out of Popsicle sticks, wire nuts, scrap styrene and the tops of every style plastic knife, fork or spoon that he has ever eaten with. At the Mad-City show Chuck Porter steered me to a vendor that was selling HO cemetery sets. The gravestones would fit in very well with S gauge and were very nice. The mausoleums were way to small. Needless to say I didn’t buy that set or for that matter did I need it. I would lose all of the memories of those great free meals that I consumed. But the wrought iron fence is really nice. It scales to a tad over six feet high and actually looked a bit big for the HO gravedigger that was built into the display. I will definitely be using this fence around my cemetery. Keep in mind that there are other places in which that type of fencing is used. Both Herman Munster and the Adams Family used that style in a residential area.

The kit contains four hundred feet of 1/87 HO scale fence (a bought 55") with two arched gates, produced in black plastic. The following is the information that I took off of the package, for those of you who might really care.

And now for you "true scalers" I will tell you about the Plasticville that I bought at the show. I did buy some, but I will not make you suffer through the details, outside of the price being reasonable.

If you are interested in using the For Sale column give me a call. I would like to limit the amount of different items to a maximum four per member.

I will list items under "Wanted" for two or three newsletters. Please contact me if you want a listing continued or it will be dropped. The same applies

to the "For Sale" column. If you sell an item contact me so that I can remove it from subsequent newsletters.

Mac is still looking for additional Lionel American Flyer B & O and NYC passenger cars (either from the basic sets or the separate 2- car pack. Premium price will be paid. Contact Mac McGrath on his cell phone: (815) 355-2645.

The car numbers 29291, & 29292 may only be purchased in a four-car set, 29291 thru 29294. The price for the set is $160.00 to non-members and $140.00 to BSG members.

Other individual years also available for those prices and car availability contact:

The views and opinions expressed in the Badgerland S Gaugers newsletters are those of the editor, unless otherwise credited, and do not necessarily represent that of the club, it’s officers, directors, or the membership.

The Badgerland S Gaugers do not offer any warranties, guarantees, nor assume any liability from information contained in this publication.

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Directors: Steve Lunde (06) – Dick Kloes (07) – Art Doty (08) – Trumann Garrett