Matt will present a 3 part clinic about the Southern Pacific's narrow gauge line through the Owens Valley. Part 1 Route and history of the rails: The history of the road starting with the first rails laid by the Carson and Colorado up to the abandonment of the route by the Southern Pacific. Key historical influences of the area and decisions made by the officers of the road are examined and understood. Geography and topography will be detailed as well as changes of route throughout the life of the 80 year road. Part 2 Places and Industries along the Way: The operation and maintenance of the road will be discussed. The hows and whys of Industrial comings and goings will be detailed as we move through the route of the Slim Princess. A chronological discovery will take place in each of the towns and significant places along the right of way. The daily operations throughout the life of the road will be understood. Part 3 The equipment and rolling stock of the line: From the Locomotive back to the Caboose, all of the types and details of the cars will be discussed during this clinic. A key understanding of why the road was stocked with the cars and engines it had will be covered. The history of cars from origin to scrapped will be discussed.

When the Silicon Valley Lines began construction of their new layout in early 2000, the club decided to try some new construction techniques. Rather than using traditional benchwork, one of the members, a commercial builder, suggested that steel strut might be a great way to build the multi-deck layout benchwork quickly. Steel C-Channel is often generically referred to as strut and can be thought of as a giant erector set, and when combined with some other modular building techniques allowed the club to build a very sturdy two level layout very quickly.

DecoderPro is a great way to set CVs in your DCC locomotives, making simple configuration changes easy. But it can also do very much more, and this clinic will focus on examples such as improving how function keys operate your locomotive, organizing locomotives for your club, making it easier to run your locomotives from Android or iPhones, and other neat things. We'll have lots of time for your questions. This clinic assumes at least some familiarity with DecoderPro, and won't cover installing it or basic operations.

This clinic is a 2 hour session about model train software and collaborative computing. We have been working on this for over 5 years, and now is the time. This clinic will review the new hardware and software products that will lead the way into the next generation.