Friends
of Southern Nevada Railway, Inc.
Membership
Meeting
4
November 2010
According to Article V,
Section 1, of the By-Laws a quorum was present to conduct FNSR business.
Chuck Brandt called the
meeting to order at 10:13 AM.
Motion to approve the minutes of the October meeting was made by John Orth and seconded by Roger Himka; unanimously approved.
Treasurer report:
Chuck Brandt announced that our bank balance as of 1 October was $ 15,440.62 plus a CD account from the dissolution of So. NV chapter of NRHS. October income was $1820.05 and expenses were $4377.43 for a net income (loss) for the month of ($2557.38). Ending bank balance was $ 12,883.24.
Standing Committee reports
Training – Tony Bond announced the need to implement new training procedures regarding emergency stop procedures for engineers and front/rear brakemen.
Chuck reintroduced the possibility of adding one or two more members to the training and certification committee to assist in the extra training. An announcement was made in the Friends meeting asking for volunteers with final selections to be made by the committee.
Restoration – Jack Corrick reported that work on the #35 is nearly complete now that it has been moved to its display position in front of the pavilion. Minor work and painting need to be finished.
Work on the 25-tonner L2 locomotive to clean it up and prepare it for display will begin in 2011.
Jack suggested that anyone interested in working on the various projects should notify project leaders when they are available and planning on being at the museum so the project leader can plan tasks for them.
Rusty Elliot has completed installation of the “ecology tank” on the 1855 with the result that most of the oil previously spewed from the locomotive is now collected and disposed of properly. Painting of the locomotive will begin again in 2011 before the weather gets too hot.
Greg “Choo Choo” Tombaugh has begun work on sanding the 502 open air car in preparation for outfitting it with benches similar to the 503 car for potential use on special event trains in the future.
Membership – Roger Himka announced that we have 30 individual volunteer members, and 8 family volunteer memberships. There are 172 public memberships as of this time, made up of a combination of individual, family, senior individual, and senior family memberships for a total of 323 public members.
Old Business
Calendar Project
Chuck reported that, after several delays and a “last-minute” change in vendor, the 2011 calendar project is finally nearing completion. Calendars should be available for the first Saturday in November in the gift shop. Pricing for the calendars was discussed. The cost to the Friends is approximately $3.00 per calendar. Plans to wholesale the calendar to the gift shop and other merchants at $6.95 were presented. The suggested retail price will be set at $9.95 by the Friends. The gift shop price will likely be rounded to an even $10.00.
Approximately 20 calendars will be provided complimentary to the various photo contributors, Peter Barton, Dan Markoff, a few others, and to the merchants who originally had planned to buy advertising in the calendar, but were later dropped to facilitate the printing of the calendars by the new vendor.
The board voted to set the price to volunteers at $5.00 for the first calendar and the $6.95 wholesale price for additional calendars.
Hwy 95 Crossing Petition
The Highway 95 Crossing petition campaign has ended. Chuck Brandt presented a copy of the signed petitions to Dan Markoff who will present the petitions to Cultural Affairs. Approximately 6700 signatures were obtained. Based on our success in obtaining petition signatures, Dan has asked us to circulate a petition he has drawn up regarding saving the 7 state museums from possible closure due to further state budget cuts.
New Business
Membership Rate Changes for 2011
Chuck Brandt introduced the need for a rate increase in all public membership categories for 2011. Suggested increase would be $10 for all categories. Volunteer memberships will remain unchanged. Definition of what constitutes a “family” was discussed in detail. It was decided to put a suggested definition in writing for comments from Peg Franchetti and Roger Himka, the membership chairman, and further discuss the issue in December. The resulting family guidelines will be voted on by the Board in its December meeting.
Chuck announced that Dan Markoff
needs approximately $2000 to transport his
The board voted to offer $1000 to the cost of transporting the locomotive if the state finds a way to provide the other $1000.
Added Run Day Friday November 26
The museum will add a Friday run day to the schedule this year after the Thanksgiving holiday. Crew members who are available to work that day should notify Chuck Brandt.
Greg Corbin
Comments
Greg offered his thanks to Roger and Bonnie Himka for spearheading the decoration of the train for the Halloween weekend. The weekend was very successful for the limited amount of publication of the event.
The next event will be the Santa Trains. Tony Bond suggested that train decorating day be the same day as the next Friends meeting (Dec. 2nd) since many volunteers will be out at the museum that day anyway.
New restrooms are completed except possibly for the remainder of the punch list. Keys to the restrooms should be made available this week as soon as final touches are completed. Restrooms will be stocked and opened before the Santa Trains.
The #35 steam locomotive was moved into its final resting position during the last week and final touches are being applied to it by Jack Corrick and his crew. Greg expressed his thanks to Jack and the crew who worked so hard to make the #35 restoration a success and move it into place where it can be seen and enjoyed by visitors as the enter the pavilion area.
The recent derailment of the caboose and 601 coach while returning to the depot at the end of a school run was an unfortunate incident that “just happened,” and was not the fault of anyone involved in the run that day. Greg expressed thanks to the crew on board who kept calm and kept all the passengers calm while disembarking from the aborted run.
Greg also expressed his thanks to Jimmy and Mike for all their work in helping restore the train to the track on the day of the incident and to Jack for his work in getting the caboose repaired and back online so quickly. The total cost of the incident approached $20,000, including the heavy lift crane to restore the cars onto the track, the repairs to the damaged switch and ties, and the repairs to the cars.
As a result of the derailment, a new emergency brake valve was added to the rear platform of the caboose.
Bonnie Himka received her certification as engineer this week. Congratulations to Bonnie for achieving this goal.
NDOT has presented its redesigned
plans for Phase 1 of the
Repainting the 844 locomotive is planned for early 2011.
On October 21st, Greg, Jack, and a team traveled to the NV Test Site to inspect and take possession of the 25-tonner, the L2. The locomotive was quickly delivered to the museum and is now on display in the pavilion.
Open Discussion
Bonnie Himka reminded everyone that Daylight Saving Time ends this Saturday night. Set your clocks back or you’ll be an hour early to duty the next morning.
Robbie Robertson, a former volunteer, returned for the meeting and asked about advertising on buses and taxis. Greg Corbin responded that the state has a very limited marketing budget and the current coupon and advertising methods are about all that he can afford at this time.
Roger Himka thanked all the volunteers who helped decorate and undecorated the train for Halloween.
Greg “Choo Choo” Tombaugh announced he has been nominated for the $1000 Spirit Award and is invited to a luncheon for the nominees. Congratulations and good wishes to Greg for being nominated for this award.
There being no further discussions, the meeting was adjourned at 10:52 AM.
The next meeting will be December 2, 2010 at 10:00 AM. Please plan to help decorate for the Santa Train after the meeting if you can attend.
