NWI CHAPTER
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
September 2025 from
Jerry Pyfer

NWI on the Road to Savanna, IL

The Joint Iowa-NWI meeting will take place
in Savanna, Illinois. The meeting begins at 10am with Iowa chapter business. Our NWI chapter does not have any chapter business to conduct. This will take place at the Savanna Museum & Cultural Center, 406 Main Street, Savanna, Illinois.

Following the opening meeting, we will explore the museum which features a large model railroad, the passenger car museum and lunch on your own. Following lunch break will be several slide programs presented by both chapters. At this time, I am the only NWI presenter and the rest will be Iowa chapter members.

We will attempt to Zoom out the afternoon portion of the meeting which should begin around 1:00pm. I will set the Zoom invite for 1:00pm and please be patient. If you are on my Zoom list, you will receive an invite the week of the meeting.

NWI on the Road

The Oregon Report

August 23rd saw the NWI chapter meet at the Oregon Depot. This meeting was different in the fact we held an afternoon meeting.

I arrived about noon to meet with Rich Rhoads, the depot caretaker. The depot was ours for the day. Several eventually joined me under the awning trackside to just watch trains go by as we chatted. It was a pleasant day with comfortable temperatures and a slight breeze. Several eastbound trains passed.

During the meeting, Todd Aspling reported on his efforts to revive the NWI Holiday dinner. We gauged the attendees as to who would be interested in such an event, most all in the room were indeed interested. Now if we do this, you better show-up.

Subsequently, Todd has reported the Davis Junction Fire Department has a meeting hall we could rent and have the meal catered in. We would have to place a deposit to hold the room. He also has a candidate for the caterer. The tentative date would be Sunday December 14, 2025. The time has not been decided upon. We will need to get a confirmed head count for the caterer. These details will be in the next NWL.

Soon enough it was time to set up the depot for our meeting. The depot has made several technical improvements with their own sound system and a high mounted monitor. This certainly helps me out not having to lug along all the chapter equipment.

There were 24 folks joining the meeting starting on time at 3:00pm. Indeed, the digital shows came thru quite nicely. Following the last presentation, we enjoyed pizza delivered from Alfonso’s down the street from the depot.

We tied up at 7pm for a nice summer evening drive home.

Railfanning is…

Railfanning is hunting for a broken piece of concrete from the Nelson coal tower for keepsake.

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