North Texas Garden Railroad Club – Objective

The objective of the organization shall be:

• To advance, improve, encourage and stimulate the quality of garden railroading through the fellowship of like-minded hobbyists.

• To promote and expand the hobby of Garden Railroading.

Board Members

President

Thomas Lytle – Term expires 2025

1st Vice President

Vard Moore – Term expires 2025

2nd Vice President

Ron Natinsky – Term expires 2026

Social Media

Jack Huffman – Term expires 2026

Secretary

Patrick Miller – Term expires 2025

Treasurer

Pete Dahlberg – Term expires 2026

Webmaster/Editor

Ron Trees – Term expires 2026:  info@ntgrc.org

Articles of Incorporation

By-Laws

Membership

Dues are due in January.

Family Membership = $25.00 annually
(After October 31st, new members will be considered
paid through December of the following year. Renewing memberships
cover the current membership year only.)

Lifetime Membership = $250.00 one time

Those applying for or renewing membership should download an application for complete details. Mail your completed application and dues to:

North Texas Garden Railroad Club
4519 Willow Bend Dr.
Arlington, TX 76017

You may also submit your application and pay your dues at any club meeting.
Please make your check payable to NTGRC.

State of the Club – 2024

STATE OF THE CLUB
PRESENTED TO THE NORTH TEXAS GARDEN RAILROAD CLUB ANNUAL MEETING
JUNE 9, 2024 – LOCATION: Becky and Vard Moore’s Home

FINANCIALS

Our financial situation is provided at monthly meetings, and we do not disclose this information in public forums.  The Board is confident, however, that the Club is in a healthy financial state.  The Club’s principal assets include our trailer, trains & track, Pola buildings, and power controllers. We maintain a sufficient balance to self-insure these assets in case of loss. Members may come to a home meeting, or contact Treasurer Pete Dahlberg, if they have questions concerning our finances.

MEMBERSHIPS

Current membership            69 (27 lifetime)
Last year                              62 (25 lifetime)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:  ACTVITIES – SHOWS and DISPLAYS

Texas Discovery Gardens was open this entire year (trains run only on the weekends, State Fair, special events, and holidays) and Ron Natinsky, with his hard work, coordination, and planning, now has five loops of track at the venue.  That is up from three loops three years ago.  Ron is preparing for a gigantic sixth loop in the spring.  In addition. new power has been run to the shed and elsewhere.  Previously, they found buried Romex indoor wiring and are running new wire in electric conduit.

The Clark Garden’s Fall Opening Festival is one of our club favorites (and a nice money maker for our budget) and has been a success each year according to the Garden’s managers.  We have been asked to return this Labor Day weekend again.  It is a beautiful setting. The Clark Garden’s trains have undergone a major renovation these past four years.  Lots of work thanks to JC Greenlee, Pete Dahlberg, Patrick Miller, Mike Pritchett, Julie Spencer, Paul Gramza, Jack Huffman, new member John Hohenbrink and Cindy and David Valdez.  Updates include reworked locomotives, new steel bridges and bridge supports, re-glued and painted houses, replaced ballast and some new track. Also, last year there were new power supplies, and remote controls PLUS the return of a multi-stop trolley line probably mid-summer 2024. Additional work includes stone bases for buildings to reduce mud splatter from rain, full re-ballasting of the layout, and designing a method to replace siding on elevated loops.  In addition, new track is replacing 100% of the old track on a loop-by-loop basis. Work is needed on replacing old Lionel steel tube track with the newer snap track. Donations are needed.

Scottish Rite Hospital train runs for the last four years have been cancelled due to COVID-19. We hope to return later this year with at least a 2-day train run, if not a 3-day run.  We are waiting to see if we can return this coming spring or summer of 2025.

The January Dallas Area Train Show was held this year as it has been in the past.  In addition, the Fall Plano Train Show is now scheduled to be held each October.  Pete is now one of the two officials controlling the money at the North Texas Council of Trains. There was a distribution of profits from the train shows as the Council has built up their reserves for future deposits.

The Cook Children’s Hospital train run is usually scheduled to be held during the month of August.  For the last four years we have been cancelled because of COVID-19 and RSV restrictions on our members.  We are working with them to see about an unrestricted return in 2025.

Our Christmas Gathering was held in December at a restaurant located in the mid-cities.  A Mexican buffet was served, and all seemed to have got their fill of beef, chicken, and shrimp fajitas.

GOALS

It is the goal of the Board to have home meetings and displays on equal footing, with approximately six of each, in a given Club year.  In addition, it is also the goal to divide those events and place them all over the Metroplex: North, East, West and South.  This allows those members who like home meetings ample opportunity to intermix with club members and discuss “Trains”.  Shows and displays also allow those members who love to run their trains for both their and other’s enjoyment an opportunity to do so.  And for those that love to do both, we are there for you all year long.

We have increased our membership with new members by reaching an all-time high of 69 members (from 32 in May 2014) – We are close to 70, and I am hoping Chris Williams will join soon. Chris is the son of Kay and Tressa Williams.  Part of that is because we want to both increase our female membership and to attract younger members to lower our average age of members.  We have discovered that there are many females who are the primary movers and shakers interested in trains – not necessarily the male spouse/significant other.  In addition, we are working on increasing the number of younger members and lowering the average age of our members.  Our members range in age from 20 years old to 89 years young.  Our female members are becoming more active and attending more shows, displays, home meetings and National Conventions.  Our younger members have difficulty getting out of school/work to attend some events and help in set up.  That is understandable.  We also have members whose sons, daughters and in some cases, grandsons and granddaughters have come to assist us.  We want both of these trends to increase in the future.

Remember, if we do not engage our youth and peak their interests in model trains, our club will die and wither on the vine.

Respectfully Submitted

Thomas A. Lytle
President

Club History

The Early Days

From George Najar

In 1976 we really did not have a club. It was like minded people who liked LGB trains. There were three people that met in 1976 and discussed getting together for shows. It was not until much later that the idea of a club was desired. I would guess the “Club” was formed in the early to mid 80s but that is a guess. Charles Alspach and Dan Carey were very active in the early club. The way it worked back then was at a show we sent out a list for people to sign who wanted to be contacted when and where the next show was to take place. Brian and or I would call the list and let people know about the train setup. As the list got larger Brian would take Dallas and I would take West of Dallas. We borrowed LBG track, engine, and rolling stock from Bobby Halls. We would sign it out on Friday and sign it back in on Monday. We had signs up for Bobby Halls so people would know where to buy the LGB equipment.

The three early adapters were:

• Paul Kepner II
• Brian Lingle
• George Najar

From Ron Greene

1. Joined 1993.
2. Chas Alspack was president.
3. Rented U-Haul to get club stuff to shows
4. Only 2 shows per year.
5. Club stuff stored in Grand Prairie warehouse.
6. Christmas Party each year.

From  Pete Dahlberg

• We did a show down in Palestine in the town square for the Palestine “Train Days”. Because the ground was not level we asked for some ballast, the sponsors brought us some wet building sand. It worked fine for the first several hours but as the sand dried out and we started having all sort of wrecks. The bigger problems was that we had sand in the track joiners for several years after.
• We regularly held meetings at On the Border next to Six Flags. In fact we were having a meeting when the Oakland CA earthquake occurred.
• We had several sessions where the club got together to help build a members layout.
• When we decided to make the mountains we just got several large blocks of Styrofoam from a billboard company. We then had a session where we used chainsaws to carve the mountains. It was a blizzard in July.
• Early on the club did not own anything. Members had to bring the track, powerpacks, trains, buildings, etc. It was quite a task to determine if we were going to have the right things for each show. At the end of each show it was also a task that everyone got their stuff back.
• The objective of the club was “to have fun with trains”.
• Meetings were split between shows, home meetings, meetings in restaurant and work sessions.
• At one point the club was asked to build a layout for the A&M Extension Station in north Dallas. We looked at the space they were going to offer and it was not the best. Also it was going to be our expense for building the layout and we would be responsible for all the labor to do landscaping.

Today