Tom Oxnard welcomed 26 Seacoast Division NMRA members to the Spring Event in the Stratham, NH, Fire Department community room on Saturday, April 11, 2026. Six more members participated by Zoom. He  recognized two members who had articles published recently. Seth Meyers wrote about Vintage Highway Guardrails in Railroad Model Craftsman and Jack Lutz wrote about Northeast Trees and Forests in the NER Coupler.

Wayne Slaughter presented the first clinic on ABS Signal Systems. He talked about the start of track circuits in 1872 which energized the rail with low current batteries, and how the current would be shunted by wheels or turnouts. He discussed Absolute and Permissive signals, semaphores, Banjos, and searchlights.

The second clinic was by Jack Lutz talking about his Beginners Adventure in 3D Printing. He acquired his printer from his son-in-law, so it was already set up, saving a lot of work. He wants to print people and vehicles, and free files are available, but they are of unusual cars. Sizing the vehicles is a challenge. He has made coal loads, windows, and woodchips, and hopes to do more.

Tage Erickson made a presentation of coffee mugs made by Chris Carfaro to members of the Concord Flyer Convention Committee for all the hard work put in over three years, including 75 Zoom meetings.

Chris Oliver gave an update on his newly improved layout power manager that will safely shut down power in an emergency and connects by Wi-Fi to a mobile phone. This was in response to a fire in a well-known home layout.

After lunch, Tom presented Peter McKenney with his Civil Engineering AP Award via Zoom all the way to Florida.

Eric LaLonde gave a clinic on Creating Clouds and Background Trees. His hardboard was already painted “Blue Jay”. He used white acrylic paint on a paper plate, and a damp sponge to create background wispy cirrus clouds. He then made a series of low, and distant clouds with the folded sponge. For background trees he uses three shades of green paint that will match the color of the actual trees on his layout. He applies this with a 2” brush in a stippling method. The result was very nice. You can see this process and other presentations on his You Tube channel: UPRR Geneva sub.

John McHugh showed us the MP4 slow motion switch machine that he is now using. It is much smaller than the Tortoise, has more power, and can be used below or above the layout.

Joe Martin models the Southern Pacific Coast Line in N scale. There are common standard depots, and Joe is now learning to 3 D print them.

Scott Linquist brought in two Athearn Blue Box 50 foot plug door milk cars that he detailed. To his pleasant surprise he found in the box an interesting write up of the history and details of the prototype car.

Tom Oxnard brought in a seaport building model. The goal was to make this totally scratch built, and to make it all “stick built”. He talked about scratch building windows, walls with 2×4” studs 2 feet on center, shingling the sides and roof, and adding a shark made from clay.

This Spring Event program featured three very informative clinics along with good show-and-tell presentations. After the meeting Mike Grahame invited everyone to visit his UP and SP Eastern Division HO scale layout.