I had a great weekend ( Friday & Saturday ) in Toledo Ohio at the North Central
Region - NMRA regional convention. Hundreds of guys who love trains and
modelling trains, and not a one of them had ever heard of Bill Lane or Ed
Loizeaux. An S-free weekend, and it was wonderful.
We went to The Anderson's freight car repair facility and were conducted around
by its superintendent. Very educational.
There were lots of model railroads to visit, old guys with their traditional HO
in-the-basement or over-the-garage layouts, younger guys with new ideas just
getting their layouts started, &c. Some covered great expanses, others had
tremendous detail in a very small spaces. HO, N, G scales were represented on
the layouts I visited. No S, of course. Jim Hockenberger drove, I navigated.
"Are we still in Ohio?" - "I dunno, we may be in Michigan."
Clinics included Allen McClelland with an update on his V&O (I fell asleep but
I'm sure it was very informative). There was a clinic on the basics of
intermodal. I knew a few things he didn't know, but he knew a lot I didn't
know. I wasn't sure whether he appreciated my supplemental information from the
audience or not. The same man did one on industries for model railroads
(sound's boring but it was actually quite thought-provoking; I stayed awake).
And I sat in on a clinic on DCC and increased my grasp of that subject. The DCC
speaker was from Lansing and said he thought it'd be interesting to do a really
complete DCC diesel installation with steps lights that could be turned on &
off. I think I'll have him do an SD-60 for me.
There were several sectional / modular layouts at the base hotel, all HO scale,
though one was traction or streetcar with functional overhead wire, and one was
HO scale, N gauge or HOn30. This HOn30 layout was operated by people outside,
not inside the loop. They were constantly talking to the people about
construction techniques, kit or scratch, prototypes of cars, buildings, &c. I
may have more on this on the S-Mod list.
Sunday I sold trains at a train show. Different location, different
organization. And had it not been for one SHS 2-8-0 sale, it would have been a
real bust. Thanks to Ken G, Tom N, Dale B, & Jim H for help there
I just reread this message, since I usually eye-ball-check as well as
spell-check my messages, and I see that I spoke at the beginning of "guys who
love trains and modelling trains." It occurs to me that I did not write "guys
who love ... model trains" but rather "modelling trains." Therein, in my
opinion, lies the real S gauge dichotomy. Rail-height is a superficial
distraction; the real difference is - do you love the process of recreating
real trains @ 1:64 or do you love your model trains? But that's a whole 'nother
megillah for another day.
If anybody is still reading this far, I'll buy you a beer at the next regional
convention, fest, spree, or whatever (offer not valid where prohibited by law
or for SMSG guys).
Tom Hawley -- Lansing Michigan
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