The Contest Chair

Because there was a misunderstanding at the 2014 Convention at Salt Lake City, the following definitions for each Popular Vote category has been prepared.  These definitions define what will be included in the various categories used for the Popular Vote Contest.  Please note that these category definitions are used for the RMR Popular Vote ONLY and are not used for Merit Award Judging where the NMRA categories are utilized by the judges.

CATEGORY PLACEMENT

ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION

MODEL DISPLAY AND CONTEST

DEFINITIONS FOR CATEGORY PLACEMENT

STEAM LOCOMOTIVE

This is any locomotive receiving propulsion from the expansion of steam.

DIESEL & OTHER LOCOMOTIVES

This is any locomotive receiving propulsion from an internal combustion engine.

TRACTION

This is any locomotive or car receiving propulsion from an external source of electricity.

PASSENGER CAR

This is any car that could be in a passenger train.  Non-powered trolleys and interurban cars are included in this category.

FREIGHT CAR

This is any car used to transport merchandise.

CABOOSE

This is any car used by the rear end train crew.

NON-REVENUE CAR

This is any car used for the purpose of maintaining the right-of-way and associated structures.

(Note: National does not differentiate between types of structures. For the Popular Vote, RMR uses two categories for structures.)

ON-LINE STRUCTURE

This class of structure is owned by a railroad company engaged in interstate or intrastate commerce and can be found along the right-of-way.

OFF-LINE STRUCTURE

This class of structure includes residences, commercial buildings and industrial buildings.

The presence of a company railroad does not make the structure an On-Line-Structure.

MINI DIORAMA

This is any module with a footprint of 144 sq in or less.

MODULE

This is any other size of a module.  The usual size is 2 ft by 4 ft.

(There are seldom many photographs entered for display. Therefore, only 2 categories are used.)

MODEL PRINT

May be shown in either Black & White or Color.

PROTOTYPE PRINT

May be shown in either Black & White of Color.

(Please note: the Contest Chairman reserves the right to determine how to display entries)

For those of you considering having your model judged for a Merit Award, consider obtaining a copy of the Achievement Program Judging Guidelines from the NMRA web site.  Read these guidelines to familiarize yourself with what the judges will be looking for.  To help you for now, here is a brief summary of the requirements in each judging category.

The main questions to be asked are:

1. What did the modeler try to do? 

2. How well did the modeler accomplish that?

For Construction there are two questions to answer:

1. The difficulty or complexity of the attempted model?

2. How well the model is constructed?

This category focuses on the Quality of Workmanship with quantity of detail or scratchbuilding to be judged in separate categories.

For Detail there is one question to answer:

How complex was the detailing?

This category focuses on how does any additional details improved the model.

For Conformity: 

How well does the model reproduce the prototype? 

This category focuses on the supporting documentation (plans, photographs, etc,) that show what the prototype actually looked like.

For Finish & Lettering there are two questions to answer: 

1. The complexity of finish and lettering? 

2. The quality and skill of the application?  

This category focuses on the general appearance and proper application of the finish and lettering to achieve a specific effect.  There is no requirement that the model be weathered.

For Scratchbuilding: 

1. How much of the model is built from scratch? 

2. How difficult was the scratchbuilding?  

This category focuses on the quantity of scratch built parts and how difficult were they to make.  The objective is to award points for anything the modeler did or made themselves as opposed to purchasing it.

Two new awards have been created for the 2015 Denver Convention. There will now be awards for the First, Second and Third highest Merit Award Scores as follows:

First – Caboose Hobbies Award

Second – Fred Carlson Award

Third – Rocky Mountain Region Award

Now is a good time to begin considering what you will enter for the Popular Vote and Merit Award Contests.

Now for some interesting facts - how well does your region do as compared to National in the Merit Award Judging at a convention?  

This year, National had 113 models to be judged with 24 models meeting the Merit Award standards - that is 21%.  

At SLC we had 28 models that were judged with 16 models achieving a Merit Award - that is 57%. 

I think that we did very well!!!