NWI CHAPTER
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
April 2019 from
Jerry Pyfer

Rockford O Scalers

You are invited to the Rockford O Scalers open house on Saturday April 27, 2019 between 2pm and 6pm. They are at 3886 Lookout Drive, Rockford, IL. Which is south off of Samuelson Road just west of the Rockford Jefferson High School, where we use to have the annual Rockford train shows. Turn south on Houston Road, T into Lookout Drive turning left.

Parking, watch out for the fire plug on the west side of the road.

There are stairs into the basement where the layout is located, so be forewarned. This layout is not real well suited for kids tempting little hands to reach out.

NWI Chapter Dues Last Word

Thank you for staying and rejoining us for 2019.
Your NWI dues portion will remain at $20 for 2019. The NWI Chapter will only accept our portion, the NRHS portion must be sent to the NRHS.

NWL News Items

Once in awhile, someone will say they don’t read the NWL because all of the news has already been broadcast on the internet.

Back in the good ole days, the NWL staff would glean through exchange newsletters that we received in the mail from Chapters around the country. The NWL was also clipped and saved by some exchange newsletters that liked what they read in our newsletter. We must have exchanged with 15 other Chapters.

When an article was deemed noteworthy, it was clipped and saved. Sometimes, it was crudely pasted in its original format. Most of the time, the editors would retype it into the newsletter to fit in seamlessly.

When you read these articles, it was fresh and interesting because you hadn’t seen it before.

Slowly, our exchange newsletter partners transitioned into electronic newsletters. They mostly sited cost as the main reason for the change but soon timeliness played another large part in the transformations.

As the internet access grew, so too did the readership of railroad news items in electronic form.

When I became the president once again in 2008, I declared we will have a paper newsletter as long as I’m president. There were some that wanted to move away from paper. I would say, become president. Then you have the problem of who is going to maintain the electronic newsletter, which if done properly, would be an almost daily routine. Even then, one would be largely rebroadcasting that which is already out there.

Our editor Erik Rasmussen and I welcome fresh, first run, well written articles or article ideas from you, the membership and subscribers. If you have one of these types of articles, let us know.

NWI Thank You

Once again the Chapter made our presence known at the Rock River Valley Division of the NMRA Train Show in Belvidere, Illinois. Thank you to them for the invite.

We talked with visitors about area railroads, and in particular, tracing abandoned rail lines such as the Gary, the KD line and even the route of the Rockford Limited of Kiddieland fame right here in Rockford. We offered invites to upcoming Chapter meetings and in general had another good time.

Todd Aspling and I discussed the idea of another Chapter outing on the Rockford Trolley Car 36 after a Chapter meeting this year. It might be nice to celebrate our 50th anniversary with a ride on Rockford rails. Let’s think about September.

Thank you to John Fredrickson for heading up our team. Jerry Van Alstyne helped John on Saturday. On Sunday, John and Jerry were there again along with Andrew Townsend, Bob Hillman and myself.

For more information about the Chapter, see Meetings and Join.