I'm leaving tomorrow (Thurs. a.m.) for Sacramento but thought I'd ask who's attending the NMRA National and if you'd be willing to put your "screen name (forum name) on your name tag along with your true Moniker? It's a little late to ask but...
It would be fun to meet up and at least say hi in the corridors or at clinics, etc.
I'll ask my wife to monitor this thread for a few days leading up to the convention. It would be fun to put a face to a name or a screen name if you guys n' gals are interested in doing that.
Thanks. See you there even if you decide to remain incognito!
Jim
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
Jim and everyone else,
I'll be at the NMRA convention next week and at the Train Show on Friday and in the morning on Saturday. My name tag will carry my screen name, since it's "Sperandeo," as well as my first name. Please introduce yourself and say hello.
Hope to see you there,
Andy
Andy Sperandeo MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
Jim:
I'm not an NMRA member, but I'm going to try and make the train show on Friday--the daily pass fee for non-members is a little steep for me to attend more than one time. It won't be any problem with me, since my screen name is the same as my real one, LOL!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Hi Andy and Tom, I'll watch for you, Tom. It would be fun to at least say hi. Andy, I plan on attending your clinic and I have a friend's layout I'd like to let you know about. He's been featured in track side photos a few times.
I'm heading out the door. Wish I'd thought to post about this earlier, but packing is work!
I'll ask my wife on the phone if anyone else has responded and I'll keep an eye out for you.
Cheers,
Jim (Capt. Grimek)
Would love to go but can't afford it this year. I used to live in Sacramento in my college days and sure miss the hot dry weather out there and proximity to Lake Tahoe!
Please give us a full report!
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Hi everybody.
How i would love to go,the distance is to great,Dublin to Sacramento it must be about 10000 miles,the the good news is we are going to have a train show in august, in Dunlaoire co Dublin,this will be close to the station opened in 1835 .
Maybe i will see you there.
regards
PATRICK
I'm leaving Sunday...will be at the convention show then off to Feather River and on to Portola.
HF1
Hi Guys. Well... I tried but those name tags were harder to read on the run, than I thought they'd be! Large lst names small last names and it got to seem kinda rude to be always staring at people's bellies in elevators! It would have been fun to have a paging booth/message board at the convention...
Here's my lst timer's report. I had a blast!
My lst day was at the Portola W.P. museum. I drove the GP9 which "fixed" a childhood disappointment!
When I was about 9 yrs. old our family butcher had an Erie Lackawanna Engineer buddy and hooked me up for a 50 mile cab ride! At that age, I assumed that my parent would be accompanying me but when the time came it was just me and this...stranger! So I didn't go and I've been kicking myself in the butt for over 50 yrs and this driving experience finally erased that disappointment and went one better!
This was July 4th and we bus toured the Feather River Canyon which is beautiful. We got lucky for the railfans and saw several UP grain trains in the canyon. Keddie Wye unfortunately did not have enough room for a tour bus to pull over but we got a glimpse through the trees.
Tues. Clinics all day. I wanted to see and meet Tony Koester (very humorous and well organized). He did a multi-deck layout clinic. Not my thing at home, but I'm a huge fan of his column "Trains of Thought".
Andy Sperandeo gave a steam loco details clinic that day also.
Wed. Layout Tours in the E. Bay/Oakland Hills area. Jack Burgess' Yoesemite Valley RR (which I've wanted to see for years) and Kermit Paul's super detailed and utterly whimsical WWII era urban layout section with tons of animation and sound effects were highlights. There were 4 other layouts on this tour!
Thurs. Attended the eve. Ca. State RR Museum after the public left and took a ride along the Sacramento River on a steam tank engine pulled excursion. (Diesel switcher on rear-push pull trip.)
We also toured the usually closed to the public, SP Shops which was fantastic for an old shop, welder, shipyard worker guy like me. We may be the last group to enter the buildings in their original 1800s state before they get touristy make overs. (Don't get me wrong I think they'll do a bang up job like the Museum itself.) There was a "carpet cutting" ceremony for the new Howell Day MRR Museum as well that evening. There are several out of service locos in the shops including the very lst (if I heard correctly) SD-40 and two F7s. A highlight for me (my era) was a 7,500 gal. tank car-riveted.
Fri. I attended my 2nd Ops session. The lst was a "pick up" surprise at the Sacramento Museum/Historical Society, Model R.R. club. Scott Inman (I think) was president and he served as one of the very best bus tour guides on the Portola trip. A VERY welcoming group of guys. Pilots were provided to guide us around the layout and panels as we operated. They have an original WP CTC panel from '41 there. The dispatecher was....NICE! Now how often does that happen?
For a lst time attendee it started out a little slow and it felt a little awkward to initiate conversations but as soon as they put us on a bus or a train conversations and friendships developed quickly. I met modelers from all over the world, Netherlands, Singapore, New Zealand, you name it. Very cool.
I had a blast and will try to attend another. Portland OR just got selected for 2015 so that one for sure!
The National Train Show really didn't seem like anything all that special. All MSRP (well 99.9%) but I finally made my final rock casting decisions after agonizing over that for about a month 24/7!
Now I can move on to agonizing about lighting!
I did leave one day early. (I expected to stay through...) I'd seen all of the clinics I needed to and all of the tours I'd intended so there wasn't much to stay for except the "Non-quet" (or something similar). Instead of the usual banquet dinner they tried an ice cream social and slide show and I just felt like spending another $125 for hotel and parking wasn't worth it to me-plus I've got one of those great wives that a guy misses!
The night before leaving, I operated on Kent William's N Scale Oregon/WA/Navigation RR with our local group's guys (WA State). It was held in a private Yoga based community which was an added level of interest and based W-A-Y up in the Mts. near Reno. Super nice guys there too and I was glad to expand my Operations experiences to an out of state "tour" level ala OP-Sig events around the country.
That's my "report". If you've never gone to a National I'd recommend giving it a try. It was inspirational and experiential and a confidence booster that my lst/only to be completed layout is on the right track compared with other well known layouts. (Of course I could "de-rail" that notion as I move along!)
If I didn't hate to fly I'd at least think about going every year. I thought overall things were exrtemely well organized with only a few (the usual) minor glitches here and there.
I even won a door prize. A $50 coupon off for an Aztek track cleaning car.
I drove about 1600 miles for this trip and it was worth it.
If there's anything else anyone would like to know, just ask.
Cheers and sorry I didn't find other tag wearers from this forum. It would have been fun to say hi.
I also had the pleasure of attending. This was my second time around, my first was Anaheim in 2008. I went on the J.R. Davis Yard tour in Roseville and also the Southern Pacific Sacramento Shop tour. Both of these tours were great. I didn't do any layout tours this time but went to several clinics including Scotty Mason's air brushing clinic and Joel Bragdon's weathering clinic. I also attended clinics given by "Model Railroader's" Tony Koester, "Model Railroad Hobbyist" CEO Joe Fugate and one given my Joe Strapec about S.P. diesels. I also became a member of the California State Railroad Museum. It was a great week and well worth the effort.