NWI CHAPTER
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
April 2025 from
Jerry Pyfer

Last Afternoon Meeting?
We began hosting Saturday afternoon meetings in January. We are testing the idea of how well attendees would like the afternoon rather than the traditional night-time meetings.

Following the April meeting, I want to hear from you and how you liked or disliked the trial meeting time. We will make a determination on how to go forth with the fall-winter series of meetings.

NWI Chapter Historian
Our Chapter historian has made it known, he will resign following the April Chapter meeting, would you like to take the job?

Basically, you would store and present the chapter’s donation table each meeting. You may be asked to

help with the chapter displays at events, such as the recent NMRA train show back in March. This would include lining-up help for the events. This is an appointed position.

Annual RRVD Train Show
The Rock River Valley Division of the NMRA has another train show in the books.

NWI guys Gary Lutes, Clarence Welty and Norm Hoisington lent a hand setting up and talking with folks stopping by our display. Thank you fellows.

We gained a few new subscribers to the newsletter and handed out many sample newsletters to promote our chapter and the NRHS.

I featured the Chicago & North Western in Rockford and by extension, the Union Pacific as part of my Rockford’s railroads series. This slide show was accompanied by a promotional slide show I assembled for the NWI Chapter. Both shows were silent shows.

Next year I plan to share the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad slide show along with another promo show.

LSRHA Symposium
Saturday, April 12, 2025, I was invited and honored to take part in the Railroad History Symposium. The event was held at the Al Ringling Theater in beautiful downtown Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Once I learned the roster of eight distinguished presenters, I was among some very heavy hitters if this had been a baseball batting line-up.

I was honored to meet in-person Kevin Keefe who had a hand in running my Wintery trip across the Southwestern in the December 1992 Trains magazine. Steve Sandburg thanking him for bringing the Milwaukee Road northern #261 back to life. Mike Yuhas whom I only knew through the computer monitor during Wisconsin Chapter NRHS Zoom meetings.

Equally interesting was the impressive number of NWI folks, past and present attending the event. Twice I was certain I was at an NWI meeting. In fact, a group of us in one seating area practically matched an NWI meeting attendance.

LSRHA honors a member making a significant contribution to railroad preservation. In a change of practice, this year two fellows received the LSRHA Lifetime Achievement Award. We were pleasantly surprised to hear the names of Mark and Mike Nelson called up front. Hey, I know those guys. Last year, Terry Norton received the honor.

All of the shows were talkie shows. I presented “We didn’t always haul freight”, a program about my experiences with work trains on both the Milwaukee Road and Illinois Central Gulf.

The program moved along quite nicely and well conducted.

We were clearer out and headed for home by 5pm.

Next year’s symposium is already on the calendar for Saturday, April 11th, same time, same place.

Department of Corrections
The February issue ran a story about the extremely faded Santa Fe GEs working the yard at Galesburg. I called the particular yard job a “Pull Down” job. The correct term is “Trimmer”.

NWI Running Extra Zoom Show
With the end of our regular meeting season upon us, I plan to have a “Running Extra” Zoom show running on Monday, May 12, 2025. The meeting doors will open at 6:45pm with the meeting starting at 7:00pm.

If you are already receiving Zoom notices, you need do no more to receive the invite. However if you are not already on the list, please let me know if you wish to join in. The invite codes will go out the week prior to the show.

NWI on the Road
The NWI Chapter will be taking two meetings on the road this year.

The August 23, 2025 meeting will take place at the Oregon, Illinois depot. Some details will be changing, we will include those changes in the August newsletter.

September 26, 2025, we will enjoy another joint meeting with the Iowa Chapter in Savanna, Illinois. Details are still being worked out but this will be an afternoon meeting to be sure.

One thing I can say at this point is;

We will be meeting at the Savanna Museum & Cultural Center, 406 Main Street, Savanna. Details about the museum can be found at: savannamuseum.org

When you go to their site, scroll down the page of model railroad photographs to the bottom. You might like the railroaders’ interviews. I thought they were all too short.

Railfanning is…
Railfanning is clicking onto the ATCS Monitor site hoping the CN Freeport Sub had somehow miraculously come back to life. It hasn’t, every time.

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