The Contest Chair

Well, my term limit will be up next spring and I already have at least one new job lined up, taking over for Bill Tulley as your Contest Chair.  Bill has been running the Contest for the last nine years and has done a great job serving all the modelers of the Region.  I have spent the last few years working close with Bill and am now ready to take over the reigns of the contest.  I hope I can do as well as Bill, and have already consulted with Bill for his expertise and will continue to do so for the future.

For the topic of my first Contest Chair column, I will explain what we are doing with the awards.  We have made a few improvements and enhancements, hoping to entice some of you and to properly reward your modeling efforts.  After all, this is the National Model Railroad Association, so we want to appropriately recognize the achievements of our modelers in the Rocky Mountain Region.  To add some pizazz to our annual convention model contest, we have started sprucing up the contest awards beginning with the Smoke and Steam in 2015 Convention. 

We now have 3 awards for the top three NMRA judged models.  Historically, we have presented the Caboose Hobbies Award from Caboose Hobbies, to the model with the highest NMRA score.  This summer, we altered the Fred Carlson Award from something subjective to the second highest NMRA score and awarded a trophy of a mountain with it.  We also have another mountain trophy (slightly smaller), called the Rocky Mountain Region Award, for the third highest NMRA score.  These additional two awards will have the convention logo inscribed and will be presented at the awards banquet after the contest, with the Caboose Hobbies Award.

The 1st through 3rd place awards in each category will be presented on a plaque for those achieving a merit score of 87.5 points or higher.  The awards are being geared to recognize those who have achieved higher scores.  The plaques are not available until after the contest, so we can have the winner’s name engraved, so only a certificate is awarded at the awards banquet after the contest.  The types of plaques are being divided into 3 categories, a basic plaque for the approximately the first 20 points, a premium plaque for the next dozen points, and an elite plaque for the final 6 points.  The breakdown of points and plaque classes follow:

                                    NMRA score                        Plaque Style

                                    87.5 – 107 pts                     Standard Plaque

                                     108 – 119 pts                      Premium Plaque

                                     120 – 125 pts                          Elite Plaque

We started doing this for the 2015 convention, and will continue this program for the 2016 Pike’s Peak or Bust Model Contest.  We want to give you a little incentive to putting in that little extra to get those hard to obtain points, and let you immortalize on your basement Hall of Fame.

The current standard plaques have been used for some time, but I will phase these out when I run out of them, and upgrade with an engraved plaque in lieu of a printed photograph.   I have examples of the standard and premium plaques for 2015, shown.  We weren’t fortunate enough for anyone to achieve an elite score this year, as we were in 2014, when Doug Geiger overachieved with his exquisite Blast Furnace.  Why we failed handing out plaques the previous years (2011 – 2014)? I can’t explain; however, I am trying to remedy that.

A standard award plaque from Smoke and Steam in 2015

A premium award plaque from Smoke and Steam in 2015