CONTEST PAGE

The 2025 - 2026 contest season will end with the May contest. The membership participation in this season's contests has been outstanding. There have been entries from thirty members in the various contests. Many of these members have entered for the first time. The various subject matters for the contests are designed with the idea in mind that it will motivate you due to your own interest in the subject area for the contest. Some members enter every month and a big thank you goes out to all of you for meeting the different challenges. There are those of you who have entered only once or twice because a particular subject caught your interest. Thank you as well. One of the main goals of the monthly model contests is to provide you with a chance to explore the history behind the subject and an avenue to create an entry that meets the current contest challenge. What can be better than to learn something new and have fun doing it.

The May contest is a rail car loading or unloading facility. This can be as simple as a pipe with a valve and a hose to unload a tank car to a huge lakeside coal dumper or something in between. There can be a fine line between model and diorama entry. If it is just the facility itself, it's in the model area, but if you add a track and a railcar with it, it becomes a diorama.

The April contest in the model area found Jeff Lauren's steel plant loads of "hot" metal taking first place. Second place went to Craig Butler's scratch built in plant specialty railcar and third place went to John Hemsath's entry which required him to go back home and get it to enter it. Way to go John. The diorama first place went to John Puch and his scene from the steel plant. Second place in dioramas went to Dave Lawler who always has something of interest to offer to us. Thanks to all who entered in the contest and to all of you who voted. I hope you had as much fun with this contest as I did.