NVNTRAK News

Our next public show is on January 2nd and 3rd at the Greenburg Train Show at the Dulles Expo Center. Come see a large two loop layout and a large TTrak layout as well.

The following week we head up to York PA for another Greenburg Train Show at the York Expo Center.

We finish out the month with our second show at the Dulles Expo Center, the Worlds Greatest Hobby Train Show on the 23rd & 24th

Check our events page for more information.

September 18, 2009 - Upcoming Weekend

NVNTTRAK will be holding two shows this weekend. The first is our usual 3rd Sunday setup at Fairfax Station. The museum will be open from 1-4PM and we will have trains running the entire time.

Our second show is the National Burn Camp at Arlington County Fire Station #5. Will we be running trains from noon until 3PM at which time we turn the throttles over to the burn camp participants.

Check our events page for more information.

September 1, 2009 - Written by Dave Freshwater, President

With deep regret, it is my sad duty to report that Matt Schaefer passed away early on August 29th.

I’ve been unable to locate a list of the “charter” members of NVNTRAK; Matt was one of our earliest members and one of the earliest officers of the club. He moved into the Superintendant’s office (originally called set-up coordinator) in July 1992. Matt was a regular author for the club. The Superintendant’s column began to appear in The Call Board in February 1993, followed by The Hostler’s Shack in January 1996. He was also a regular contributor to the NTRAK Newsletter.

We counted on Matt’s range of contacts whenever we wanted to coordinate a large layout with other clubs. While not formally recognized as such (NTRAK has no “Legends” program similar to the NMRA program), Matt’s contributions to NTRAK truly are legendary. His Hawks Nest modules broke the mold of NTRAK “racetrack” or “fortress” layouts. He broke the paradigm that tracks had to stay parallel to the edges of the module. Where many were content with low, rolling hills, Matt modeled a scene that required feet of space from the top of the hills to the river bottom. And, having based the modules on a real location, he is responsible for the NVNTRAK New River Subdivision that journeys to Hawks Nest, WV, each spring.

Having shown everyone that NTRAK layouts could be more than rectangular, Matt’s next innovation meant that layouts could do more than just outline the perimeter of a space. With the junction module design, many more modules could fit within the same floor space. Every large layout over the past 13 years owes something to Matt.

Matt had a role in adapting AristoCraft throttles, designed for garden railroads, to NTRAK, so that one could follow trains around our layouts. He surely served as an inspiration for the development of oNeTRAK. And he was a driving force in the uNconvention layout in 1999, where we provided helper service to RANTRAK and adapted NTRAK, oNeTRAK, Bendtrack, and maybe a few other module standards into that single layout. And we then stood all standards on their ears and ran Aristo trains over several layout loops on the Yellow and Blue lines while the Red line spine and other loops ran on Digitrax DCC. Matt was our senior statesman for the 2004 Capitol Limited– and recruited even more people to come be part of the layout.

Matt shared his knowledge with others inside the club and in the wider NTRAK community as a regular contributor to the NTRAK Newsletter.

The West Point Alma Mater includes the lines –
“And when our work is done,
Our course on earth is run,
May it be said, 'Well Done;
Be Thou At Peace.'”
Well done, Matt. Be at peace.

Archived News Items