2019 NMRA National Convention and Train Show

West bound stack train creeping through Echo Canyon due to track work further west

The Jackson River scene on Brian's layout
 got a lot of positive comments

Whew, what a week. My wife and I traveled to Utah for vacation that included the NMRA National Convention and Train Show.

Actually, I didn't spend much time at the convention as I stayed with Brian Brendel to help him prepare his layout and then host several open houses.

I arrived at Brian's house on Sunday after a few rounds of golf with Alicia. We immediately went to work on the layout. The tasks we accomplished included painting rock carvings, finishing the fascia, adding scenery to various sections, hanging skirts and clean up. Brian has been working on this layout for about 3 years and has made a good deal of progress, especially considering he is now the chief of the Mountain Green Fire Department, a volunteer outfit. In the four days I was with him, he went on 4 calls.

The strategy we followed was to have the scenes that greet the visitors to be relatively finished.  So that's what we concentrated on. While I worked on fascia and some scenery, Brian installed the tracks to the Waynesboro switch district.

This is the view the greets visitors as they enter the layout room

The open houses went off very well. There were about 110 visitors over three days. Everyone was extremely nice and polite. Brian received a lot of nice comments. The green covered hills and the Jackson River scene received most of the accolades.

Brian entertaining visitors from the LDSIG

Steve Woodward and Paul Graf from Atlas Model Train Comoany 

listen to Brian extoll the virtues of code 80 track

LDSIG presented Brian with a fancy plaque on 

plywood and homasote  

After the open houses, we did an afternoon of railfanning. I finally managed to get a shot of a train in Echo Canyon, a very scenic spot on the UP main line. (See lead photo). Track work on the line had reduced the normal high train frequency to a much lower level.




























On Friday, we went to the train show. I enjoyed talking with the various vendors and manufacturers, also trying to recruit vendors for MARPM.

There were a few product announcements that were of interest to me. First, Bachman announced a new locomotive in On30 based on the 60cm  WWI 2-6-2T tank engines. They also plan to have rolling stock to go with the engines.

Bachmann is going to offer On30 2-6-2T Tank Engines

Walthers announced that they are reissuing their steel mill model kits with new details and packaging. The blast furnaces will have the stairs and railing included. The rolling mill will be doubled in size with new details inside.

Lionel announced two new 4-4-0s in 3-rail configuration. The engines look nicely detailed, but conversion to 2-rail would be a big job as the wheels would have to be replaced or machined to smaller flanges.

Converting to 2-rail looks like a big job

The locos look nicely detailed

The FreemoN folks had a massive and impressive modular layout. They had some very nice modules.

Later that evening I presented two clinics at the convention hotel. I got some nice comments from the attendees.

That ended my convention activities, as Alicia insisted I play more golf with her.