The tentative schedule, April 5, 2025

Doors open at 9 am.

9:45 AM, welcome remarks

10 am, first clinic:

Clinic presenters, PMLC 2025. Note that some of these clinic presentations are odd time durations so things likely won’t happen right on the hour. Be flexible!

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Nick Lehrbach – Logging video that includes Coos Bay.

James Spears – Modeling the Oregon-American Lumber Company

Will Cochran – CD Johnson, V&S Powerpoint presentation

Jason Reis – Early history of the PR&N

Jay Critchley – “Fireflies in the Night” wigwam burner documentary

Matt Carter , Don Nelsen – Greenleaf Basin Logging

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12 noon – Lunchtime! We can highly recommend the restaurant upstairs

1:30 pm, clinics resume

3:00 pm, Model contest closes, get those ballots in for 2025!

4:30 pm, contest results, awards, door prizes, final farewell.

… That’s all, folks! …

Please respect the folks conducting the presentations today. This is a small venue and background conversation distracts from what they are trying to tell us. Please NO VENDING during the presentations – And please take all private conversations outside during the clinics. We thank you very much for your consideration of others.

The Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress is a one-day annual event. It’s designed to appeal to model railroad enthusiasts who model logging type operations and equipment and others with an interest in logging history.

The event features technical and historic clinic presentations, a model contest for all scales and types of logging equipment (see details elsewhere on this site), terrific socializing with others of the same interests and some historic vintage film screening. Our modest dealer area includes vendors offering model and historic material for sale.

We start at 9am Saturday and wrap up around 5, more or less. Admission is $15 per person.

Because this is the last year Pam and I will be hosting the event, we’re looking for someone or some organization to take it over. Pam and I will remain as volunteers during the day of the event but the planning, execution and location will be up to the new hosts.

For complete model contest information, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Here are the clinic presentations planned for our 2025 event:

Nick Lehrbach – Logging video that includes Coos Bay.

James Spears – Modeling the Oregon-American Lumber Company

Will Cochran – CD Johnson, V&S Powerpoint presentation

Jason Reis – Early history of the PR&N

Jay Critchley – “Fireflies in the Night” wigwam burner documentary

The 2025 Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress will be the last one that Pam and I host.  Pacificmodelloggerscongress.org

Pam and I have had serious discussions about this for some time. We’ve considered all the angles, asking ourselves why we feel this way about shutting down an event with a roughly 20 year history and, unfortunately, an ever-smaller but much-appreciated cadre of enthusiastic supporters. My first records of the event are dated 2005, it’s been a good run, and we’ve had fun.

Some reasons are “mechanical” in nature, such as the dwindling attendance and smaller model contest participation, the difficulty of rounding up clinic presenters and so on. The financial angle is the least of our worries and not a significant factor. Other reasons are more personal, for example, the recent death of Lyle Spears hit both if us pretty hard, as did the loss of our leader Lon Wall a few years back, to say nothing of losing Glen Comstock, John Cummings, Bill Roy and the other terrific old timers in the group. These older guys were literally the ones who shaped the model railroad logging hobby we now know. The details all add up to us feeling this is a good time to call it quits.

It’s time for someone from the newer generation of modelers to take charge.

If someone out there has any interest in taking this over and continuing the event, either here or elsewhere, please let us know. We have paperwork, email and postal mailing lists, some “office supplies” and so on that helped us maintain the event year after year. We’ll happily turn over the material and help explain its use. If you’re seriously interested in this, we’d recommend you attend this last event starting with the room setup Friday April 4 late afternoon and staying on hand until we break down and clean up Saturday evening April 5. Nothing like first-hand experience to get up to speed on hosting an event, even a relatively easy one-day affair. Chances are a new event host will want to modify and shape the new event along somewhat different lines and that’s fine, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a feel for how it works from an inside perspective before launching out towards new horizons.

We logging modelers will have just one special interest event remaining each year, the annual Westside Reunion in Sonora, California, and hopefully we can continue supporting that one-day convention. Pam and I will be there and it’s always a good time. Westsidereunion.com.

Jeff Johnston

Thesugarpineshop.bigcartel.com

2025 Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress

September 23, 2024: The 2025 Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress, the last one we’ll be hosting, takes place April 5 at the Camp 18 Restaurant and Logging Museum. We’ve been taking a long hard look at the event and for the most part, things will remain the same as in past years, with a few adjustments.

First, the admission will still be $15.00 as it’s been for many years. Our fixed costs and diminishing attendance have made it necessary to adjust our cash flow so we can try and avoid being in the red at the end of the event again. We’ll do our best to be sure we provide all thew features our attendees have enjoyed all along.

We’ll be sending out postcards for the last time so previous attendees have the chance to be here if they want to. At least they’ll know about it.

We’re looking for clinic presenters with modeling or history subjects so any leads you guys can pass along would be terrific.

That’s about it for now. – Jeff Johnston

We’re just over a week away from our 2024 Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress and plans are proceeding apace. One area where we need help, on that day (no earlier commitment required) is with the model contest. We need two people to man the contest entry table in the morning and then do the vote tallying after 3 pm. With the untimely demise of our co-host Lon Wall, the event hosts are just me and my wife Pam. We depend on our usual cadre of friends and volunteers to cover assorted tasks and such during the event.

If you are inclined to help us out, drop me an email and let me know. You get free admission to the event and our eternal gratitude for help with this important part of the event. Thank you!

Plans are rolling ahead for the 2024 edition of our event.

We have a stellar lineup of clinics and speakers this year! These include both modeling and historic theme presentations by Martin E. Hansen, Nick Lehrbach, Greg Baker and Will Cochran. Martin has a presentation on the SP&S moving dead logging locomotives, Nick will cover some Coos Bay lumber company material, Greg is doing a clinic on improving trees for your layout, always a popular subject, and Will Cochran with a detailed clinic about modeling logging donkeys of all types – something almost all of us modelers need. There’s something for everyone.

Please be sure to check our information, posted farther down this message string, about changes to the modeling contest this year, and we hope to see you there!

• Jeff Johnston

2023 Clinic details

We have our clinic presentations set for March 4^th, 2023, and we’re happy to announce we have a two prototype history clinics, a regional prototype current events clinic, and two modeling clinics in the lineup. All presented by pros who know what they’re talking about so they’re all very much worth seeing.

As a kickoff speaker we have Martin E. Hansen doing a presentation on “When SP&S Moved Dead Logging Locomotives.” Martin’s presentations are always alive with great photos from his collection and fun information to back up those photos.

Next up is Greg Baker with a modeling clinic on “How to improve ready-to-use trees” from manufacturers such as Woodland Scenics. Today’s RTR trees are looking much better than the ice cream cone or Christmas trees that were commonly available back in the day but Greg takes the new trees a step farther with the addition of readily available scenic texture materials and a little effort on the modelers’ part.

Following Greg is Bethan Maher, the Executive Director of the Western Forest Industries Museum / Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad, who will be speaking and will bring us up to speed on what’s happening there. This is the straight scoop and should put to rest some of the rumors that have been flying around about the place. Come on out, hear for yourself, and have your most pressing questions answered.

“Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad at Fifty: The Past, Present, and Future

Presented by Bethan Maher, Executive Director of Western Forest Industries Museum / Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad.

Bethan will cover the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad from the organization’s founding in 1980 by Tom Murray Jr. to the current effort to restore the railroad and museum to operation. What will the Mt. Rainier Scenic look like at fifty? A presentation on the current effort to restore the railroad to operation and the importance of creating personal connections to our area’s logging and railroading heritage.”

Nick Lehrbach will be speaking about the Coos Bay lumber company and present a video on an aspect of the line’s operation. Coos Bay was a big operation and we don’t see enough about it here at Camp 18 so Nick’s clinic will help fill that information gap.

I’m also pleased to announce a clinic by Will Cochran that’s sure to be popular with the modelers in the group. 

“Modeling Steam Donkeys: a look at kitbashing, weathering, and detailing to match prototypes. Looks at commercially available kits and models, prototype photos, and suggestions on how to make one look like the other. Sleds, houses, and detailing… with a look at a variety of model kits and suggestions on how to utilize them!”

Steam (and electric or diesel) donkeys are an important part of logging modeling so another clinic on how to design and build them for your layout or diorama should be a popular presentation. Watch for it on March 4^th.

That’s the lineup as it stands on February 1^st, subject to change of course based on presenter availability and so on. We hope to see you there to enjoy these presentations from a stellar lineup of clinicians.

We regret that the 2023 event has been cancelled. Weather-related travel difficulties have made it necessary to cancel this year, but we’re looking ahead to 2024 and hoping for the best.

After much ado about finding a more suitable date, we’re back to the first Saturday in March, the 4th, for our event. We had tried getting away from this early date due to some recent weather-related problems, hoping a month or so later would avoid the snow and ice trauma, but other conflicts made the original date the best option.

We’re back to March 4th, and we hope that works out well for most of you guys.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

First off, we sincerely appreciate the time and efforts our PMLC clinic presenters invest in assembling material to present at our event. It requires time and expertise to put together a first-class clinic and we, and our participants, appreciate that effort.

That said, we need to have you bring the prepared and finished presentation to the event so you’re ready to roll when your time comes up. A Powerpoint is the ideal format, and we also have a 35mm Carousel slide projector available for an old-school presentation. Nothing like seeing original “live” slides for a clinic! A Keynote presentation is also great, but you’ll need to bring along a Mac laptop with the Keynote software because my older Mac laptop does not have that software.

In the past I’ve roughly assembled a Powerpoint on site when given a stack of digital photos. When everyone else is upstairs having lunch I’m in the basement getting the show ready to go, which the presenter (probably fat and happy upstairs eating lunch and socializing instead of doing his or her own homework preparation) should have done in the first place. I am not doing that anymore. If you show up with a handful of pictures and expect us to finish preparing your show, we don’t be doing that, because we don’t have time for that and expecting us to finish your preparation “the day of” is unrealistic. You’ll need to finish your program before the day of the event, or you’ll need to work out how to get the show on the screen without our involvement beyond supplying the projector and show hardware. That’s not asking too much.

This is especially true now that my co-host Lon Wall is no longer with us. The jobs he and I previously shared duties on are now on me, my wife Pam and any other volunteers I can round up. That means there’s less time to handle the ancillary diversions like finishing someone else’s homework.

That said, there is an option if you aren’t onboard with Powerpoint software. I will happily assemble your graphics into a Powerpoint if you can send me the material at least two weeks prior to the event. If it arrives after that time I’ll be returning the material to you unused unless prior arrangements are made. This material can be digital photos and digital graphics. I will not work with your 35mm (or other format) slides because each one needs to be individually scanned, sized, corrected as needed for a presentation and then assembled in the Powerpoint format and that kills a lot of time that falls into the category of preparation you should be doing. Preparing your slides is your job, and once you have the digital images available, I can put them into a Powerpoint for presentation. If you aren’t able to convert the slides to digital, we do have a 35mm projector available for the event.

I hate to sound hardnosed about this but we’ve been jumping through hoops with some clinic presenters and feel it’s time to help streamline the process by having people do their own preparation, which I feel is entirely reasonable. If any questions arise, contact me at splco-mwry@comcast.net.

This seems like a good time to pass along some news about the 2023 Pacific Model Loggers’ Congress. We are going to be combining some contest classes for the 2023 event, partly for financial reasons, and for now we’re eliminating the Diorama class from the model contest. Our event (along with other model railroad conventions and such), and logging modeling in general, are experiencing some participation changes of late so some contest changes make sense for us.

Our changes will mainly be to combine certain contest classes which, lately, have had very few participants in each class. This is a good idea for several reasons apart from financial, and we feel the changes we make will make the contest a better fit for all those who enter.

More news on this as it develops.