CSC11 Report

BG Kempinski lecturing on civil war railroads. Lee looks like he is zoned out in the foreground. Jamie Zepada photo used with permission.

Alicia and I had a fun weekend at CSC11. We arrived a few hours late on Friday due to an accident involving a boat blocking all lanes of I-95.  We avoided the accident but got caught up in the mess. We had enough time to eat dinner at the hotel and start my workshop on schedule. We had 12 students in the class. Several were able to finish the kit in the 3 hours we had allotted. Everyone seemed to enjoy the clinic and several folks picked up additional kits to build later.

Nice trees on the NBR&N

On Saturday morning, it was too cold for our planned cranberry bog hike, so I had a chance to meet the vendors and tour the layouts while AW headed to the outlet mall. There were two layouts set up,  an On30 group called the Narragansett Bay Railway & Navigation Company and a HO modular layout called Valley HOTrak. Both were very well done. The On30 layout really shows off the advantages of the bigger scale.

I had a great conversation with Andy Small of the NBRy&N. He has a small company called Train Troll that makes craftsman kits with a narrow gauge focus. He has several marine projects lined up for O scale including an ACW screw tug.

One of Andy Small's scratchbuilt ships on the NBR&N

I also got to meet Bob Van Gelder of South River Model Works, Brian & Jill Bollinger of BEST Models, Jimmy Simmons, Mike Willegal and many others for the first time. I met old friends including Craig Bisgeier, Jeff Adams,  & Lee Weis.


On Saturday afternoon I presented my talk on Introduction to the Railroads of the Civil War. It was very well received. I could see some light bulbs coming on as people realized the attraction of modeling this era.

Scott Mason announced that this would be the last CSC. I'm glad I got to attend one before they ended.