Great Lakes Getaway 2017

I spent last weekend in the southeastern Michigan area attending an event called, "Great Lakes Getaway." It's a round-robin layout operations weekend hosted by several layout owners from Battle Creek to Northern Ohio. That area is blessed with numerous fantastic layouts and some of the friendliest people you will ever meet. Among the many highlights of the weekend was getting to run the steel mill job on Jim Talbot's WL&E layout. I had so much fun, I spent the weekend wondering how I could fit a steel mill in my layout. Jim asked me to do a video as I operated and I did. I posted it on Youtube here.

The new coal dock temporarily in place on the layout

The next day I delivered the  coal dock model that I built for Mike Burgett's C&O layout. It is an honor to be able to contribute to Mike's layout. His layout is a tour de force of realistic model railroading. It is easily in my top 10 list of model railroads.  Aside from the beautifully finished layout, he has a separate room up stairs for the dispatcher, and ND Cabin operator in the garage. Both are fully equipped with authentic vintage railroad equipment.

My weekend continued with operations on Bill Neale's Pennsy Panhandle layout set in 1939. I had a series of interesting jobs on his impressive layout.

I also got a chance to visit Scott Kremer's GN layout. It is an absolutely gorgeous layout with over 5,000 hand made trees and beautiful painted backdrops.

I spent a good part of the weekend driving around and having dinner with guys that work for the real railroads. It is always interesting to get their prototype view of industry and how it applies to the hobby.

Below is a summary video I shot of the various layouts I visited. All in all a great weekend, except that as usual, I caught a cold. Airplanes and I don't mix.